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MENTAL HYGIENE. 



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AN ESSAY 



^ 



THE PRINCIPLES 



MENTAL HYGIENE 



BY 

D. A. GORTON, M.D. 



" What should fairly and honestly be weighed is, that mind is the last, the highest, 
the consummate evolution of nature's development, and that therefore it must be 
the last, the most complex, and most difficult object of human study." — Maudsley. 

" Sana mens in corpore sano." — Horace. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
i873- 

2* 



/ 



\0 



y 
#$ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Lippincott's Press, Philadelphia. 



TO 

W. S. D., 

AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT FOR A MAN 

IN WHOM THE LOVE OF TRUTH FOR ITS OWN SAKE 

IS A CARDINAL VIRTUE, 

THIS VOLUME 

IS FAITHFULLY INSCRIBED 

BY HIS FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 

\V \, 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGES 

Mental Influence of Physical Agents . . . 9-60 



CHAPTER II. 

Mental Influence of Physical Agents — Continued . 61-94 

CHAPTER III. 

The Reciprocal Influences of Corporeal and Mental 

Exercise 95-127 

CHAPTER IV. 
Moral and Religious Influences .... 1 28-1 61 

CHAPTER V. 
Moral Agents and Influences 162-194 

CHAPTER VI. 
Marriage 195-233 

7 



PREFACE. 



This essay has been prepared with the profound 
conviction that mind is the most important part of 
man ; and that the least contribution tending to ex- 
tend the world's knowledge and appreciation of the 
relation of mind to nature is of superlative interest to 
him. 

There is a strong conviction in the minds of many 
in the medical profession, as well as among intelligent 
lay-people, that there exists an intimate connection 
— an interdependent relation — between the physical 
conditions and environments of man and his moral 
status. The purpose of this essay is to throw some 
light upon that interesting subject. 

The medical profession has been charged with 
apathy toward this field of physiological inquiry ; and 
if the charge be just, I am confident that the neglect 
has arisen not so much from a want of a just appre- 
ciation of its importance, as from a disinclination to 
intrench upon a department of study which the cus- 
tom of centuries has wrongfully confided exclusively to 
the profession of theology, and perhaps, also, from a 



x PREFACE. 

modest disinclination to needlessly appear in the un- 
popular role of a teacher of heretical views. The time is 
come, it seems to me, when justice to an intelligent 
conviction requires such scruples to be laid aside. 
The cause of human progress demands the conse- 
cration of the highest professional endeavor in this 
regard. Truth is a legacy too precious to mankind 
to be sacrificed in the interest of conventional usages 
and set formulas. Whatever be the fate of these, 
truth must abide forever. 

If the sense of security which this faith awakens in 
me has emboldened plainness of speech in reference 
to religious dogmas, I beg to say that it has been in- 
dulged with a deep respect for religious truth and 
sentiment; and I am more and more convinced with 
each new thought and observation that man's great 
want is more religion, — a more substantial growth in 
the religious graces : faith, hope, charity, honor, hon- 
esty, virtue. Mental hygiene comprehends the nur- 
ture of these ennobling graces. 

In the following pages I have purposely confined 
myself to general principles, as to write out their 
application to individual exigencies would swell the 
bounds to which I had limited myself. The wisdom 
of this course will be questioned by many practical- 
minded people; but I have greatly mistaken the 
mental capacity of the average reader if he, by careful 
reading of the text and due reflection thereon, be not 



PREFACE. x i 

able to comprehend the bearing of these principles, 
and to make such application of them as individual 
and society's needs require. Development is the grand 
fact of all nature. It is exhibited in the condensation 
of the primordial atoms; in chemical affinity and crys- 
tallization; in the foliage which drapes the planet; in 
the flowers and fruits which crown the vegetable king- 
dom ; no less in the countless phenomena of conscious 
life, and the sublime unfolding of the human brain 
and mind. What is most needful to be known in 
respect to it is, that proper conditions are the antecedents 
indispensable to its highest realization in any department 
of nature y or realm of matter or of mind. 

If I mistake not, when this fact is duly appreciated 
it will be a comparatively easy task to ascertain the 
conditions best suited for each particular unfolding, 
and to place one's self and one's children in accord 
therewith. Knowledge — knowledge of ourselves — is 
the most effectual savior from the evils which afflict 
mankind. 

He who reads the following pages with the atten- 
tion the importance of the subject demands, cannot 
fail to remark the number of quotations introduced 
from the writings of distinguished savants, past and 
present. To my mind, that is the best feature of my 
volume. And I cannot bring myself to believe that 
an apology for the innovation is at all necessary. Had 
I paraphrased freely, my paragraphs would have 



xii PREFACE. 

looked — only looked — more original. The authors 
from whom I have quoted, however, write good Eng- 
lish as well as good sense; and in bringing their ideas 
to my support, it seems only just to them that I 
should use their own superior language, instead of 
paraphrasing their ideas in the inferior one of my 
own. Moreover, a vast deal of time and mental 
labor is saved by pursuing the former course ; a 
desideratum of itself sufficiently important in this 
busy world to embolden me to strongly commend 
the practice to others under like circumstances. Our 
writings would sometimes appear to be less original 
in consequence, it is true. But appearances are often 
deceitful, as ail know. I do not say, however, that they 
are always so when the -opposite course is pursued. 
Pas du tout! 

Deeply sensible of the shortcomings and imper- 
fections of the volume, but conscious, at the same 
time, of having done the best I could with the leisure 
and materials at my command, I submit it to the 
kind consideration of the profession, and of all others 
interested in the moral and intellectual progress of 
man. 

D. A. G. 

311 Clinton Street, 

Brooklyn, N. Y., May, 1873. 



THE 



PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL HYGIENE. 



CHAPTER I. 

Mental influence of physical agents. 

The art of preserving the health of the mind com- 
prehends a knowledge of the laws and conditions of 
sentient beings. These laws and conditions comprise 
man's relation to the Infinite; and if the study of them 
has raised hygiene to the rank of a science, the credit 
must be given to the progress of rational philosophy, 
the diffusion of which is like the reflection of light in 
dark places. 

The bane of hygiene, like that of religion, has been 
superstition. Indeed, medical history is, to a great ex- 
tent, the record of the struggle between rational ideas 
on the one hand, and blind, unreasoning credulity on 
the other. In the choice of means and observances 
for the mental and physical improvement of mankind, 
the most rational are by no means always the most 
effective. Faith is still a more ready resource in human 
affairs than reason ; and the day is not yet past, in 
the progress of either religion or medicine, when the 

2 9 



IO 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



crudest form of that element has ceased to be a sani- 
tary as well as a religious virtue. 

The change which human opinion is undergoing in 
this respect is, in the highest degree, interesting. In 
ancient Greece, among the blind, credulous wor- 
shipers at the celebrated temple of ^Esculapius, when 
a malady was to be cured, or the ravages of a pesti- 
lence stayed, the holy serpents kept at the temple were 
brought out and displayed among the credulous popu- 
lation of the infected districts. The charm seems to 
have fulfilled its purpose in a measure, for the serpent 
is still retained as the emblem of the healing art. The 
Romans invoked the magic aid of Apollo under simi- 
lar circumstances, and, it is presumed, with similar suc- 
cess. The practice of Christendom is not altogether 
dissimilar. Even in our day it is customary, among 
the devout followers of Christ and the advocates of 
the mystical doctrines of Saint Paul, to appeal to the 
former for assistance and support in all serious emer- 
gencies, as when an epidemic of cholera, diphtheria, 
or a drought is threatened, or a prince, or some other 
important personage, is in danger from an infection of 
typhus ! The philosopher's method, in dealing with 
these exigencies, comprehends an entirely different 
conception of the divine order and processes. It 
comprehends the discovery of the causes of pestilence 
and other abnormal phenomena, and averts and re- 
moves their invasion by a resort to rational means. 
There is no lack of faith in this method ; but it is a 
faith of a higher order than that exhibited in priest- 
craft and jugglery. It is a faith founded on a knowl- 
edge that the universe is governed by no arbitrary 
edicts or transitory laws ; and that the phenomena of 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



II 



nature, including those of man's physical and mental 
organization, proceed entirely from legitimate antece- 
dents.* These antecedents may not always be readily 
apprehended nor easily removed ; but, nevertheless, no 
well-balanced mind, in the full possession of its facul- 
ties, could doubt for an instant their existence, nor 
hope for redress or exemption from their disturbing 
influence by frantic appeals to the Supreme Being, no 
more than to the holy serpents, of which the goddess 
Hygeia is said to have had charge at Epidaurus. 

Mental diseases and derangements do not differ in 
their essential causes from the more obvious corporeal 
maladies. An unsightly physical deformity represents 
so much morbid force, spent in the direction of the 
least harm to the mental character of the individual. 
A goitre for example may, and I believe often does, 

* "All mundane events are the results of the operation of law. Every 
movement in the sky, or upon the earth, proclaims to us that the universe 
is under government." — Draper s Intellectual Developme7it of Europe, 
p. 4. 

" To those who have a steady conception of the regularity of events, and 
have firmly seized the great truth that the actions of men, being guided by 
their antecedents, are in reality never inconsistent, but, however capricious 
they may appear, only form part 'of one vast scheme of universal order, of 
which we, in the present state of knowledge can barely see the outline. 
. . . Indeed, the progress of inquiry is becoming so rapid and so earnest, 
that I entertain little doubt that before another century has elapsed the 
chain of evidence will be complete ; and it will be as rare to find an histo- 
rian who denies the undeviating regularity of the moral world, as it now is 
to find a philosopher who denies the regularity of the material world." — 
Buckle's History of Civilization in England, vol. i. p. 31. 

"Whether we examine the course of the planets, or the world of the 
animalcula, to whatever field of physical nature our researches turn, the 
uniform invariable result of scientific inquiry is to show that even the most 
apparently irregular and surprising phenomena are governed by natural 
antecedents, and are all parts of one connected system." — Lecky's History 
of European Morals, vol. i. p. 375. 



12 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

hold in its cells the condensed essence of a mania ; 
rheumatism may divert a pneumonia; and a tuber- 
cular phthisis obviate or subvert an incurable neurosis. 
This important truth is well known to mental patholo- 
gists and physiologists, and yet it is continually mis- 
apprehended or disregarded by those whose business 
and duty it is to appreciate it. Nothing is susceptible of 
a more easy and complete demonstration than that the 
mind, no less than the body, is subject to physical laws ; 
and that corporeal and mental maladies may mutually 
supplement and counteract each other. Eminent sci- 
entists have long been of the opinion that the mental 
processes, — the correlation of ideas and feelings, moral 
perceptions, etc., — are phenomenal processes peculiar 
to the nervous functions.* To that, however, it is 
quite unnecessary to do more than to allude in this 
connection. All intelligent people, of every shade of 
philosophic or theologic belief, are firmly united in 
the opinion that the brain is the physical organ of 
the mind, — its seat, residence, and visible source ; and 
that their connection is quite indissoluble during life.f 

* "It must be distinctly laid down," says Maudsley, "that mental 
action is as surely dependent on the nervous structure as the function of 
the liver confessedly is on the hepatic structure." — Physiology and Pathol- 
ogy of the Mind, p. 44. 

f " If the growth of the cerebral organs be incomplete, the faculties of 
the mind are equally defective." — Spurzhcim ' s Phrenology, vol. ii. p. 87. 

" The possibility of exercising and training the faculties of the mind also 
shows their dependence on the organization ; for that an immaterial being 
can be exercised is inconceivable." — Ibid., p. 36. 

Dr. John Mason Good, whose learning and moral qualities "The Study 
of Medicine" sufficiently attests, acquiesces blindly and reverently in the 
revelations of Scripture for light upon all matters psychical and spiritual, 
confessing his utter ignorance of their nature and essence. " Of the nature 
of the mind or soul itself," he says, "we know little beyond what revela- 
tion has informed us." But we are also equally in the dark concerning the 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. ^ 

Like matter and force, the one may be conceived as 
existing separable from the other, but it is only in con- 
ception after all. In fact, the twain are inseparable 
and indissoluble by any process short of breaking up 
and destroying the physical organization, by which 
the psychical is actuated and made known to us. 
Physiologically, brain and mind are to be considered 
one and inseparable.* 



nature of matter. He says : "Of the essence of matter we know nothing, 
and altogether as little of many of its more active qualities. . . . But if 
we know nothing of the essence, and but little of the qualities of matter, of 
that common substrate which is diffused around us in every direction, and 
constitutes the whole of the visible world, what can we know of that which 
is immaterial?" — Study of Medicine, vol. ii. pp. 161-2. 

At the time our author wrote the whole scientific world was divided 
into materialists and immaterialists. Since the brilliant discoveries of 
the later physiologists, and more notably those of the spectroscope, 
materialistic problems have measurably ceased to disturb the moral equi- 
librium of any class of thinkers ; matter being sufficiently wonderful in its 
strange metamorphoses to enlist the earnest attention of the most enlight- 
ened and spiritually minded. 

* "Consciousness gives no account of the essential material conditions 
which underlie every mental manifestation and determine the character of 
it : let the function of an individual's optic ganglia be abolished by disease or 
otherwise, and he would not be conscious that he was blind until experi- 
ence had convinced him of it. On grounds which will not easily be shaken 
it is now indeed admitted, that with every display of mental activity there 
is a correlative change or waste of nervous element ; and on the condition 
of the material substratum must depend the degree and character of the 
manifested energy or the mental phenomenon." — Mauds ley s Physiology 
and Pathology of the Mind, p. 13. 

" Magendie, the celebrated French physiologist of the last century, also 
held that the phenomena of life and mentality were the sequence of vital 
and nervous functions. Concerning the genesis of mind and intelligence, 
he says : ' L'intelligence de l'homme se compose de phenomenes tellement 
differens de tout ce que presente d'ailleurs la nature, qu'on les rapporte a 
un etre particulier qu'on regarde comme une emanation de ia Divinite.' 
And while the physiologist cannot doubt the existence of a Supreme Being, 
it is well, he thinks, to use guarded language in expressing his relations to 
him, since that is a subject of which he knows so little. Then he con- 



! 4 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

"In dead matter," says Maudsley,* "the form is 
looked upon as the attribute of the matter ; whereas, 
on the other hand, in living bodies, the matter is 
treated as the attribute of the form. In inorganic 
nature the matter is the essential thing ; in the or- 
ganic creation the form is all in all. But to neglect 
the exact consideration of the conditions and combi- 
nations of matter, as determining organic form, is not 
less mischievous than it is to concentrate all the atten- 
tion upon the matter in inorganic nature. What are 
inseparably joined together in nature let us not vainly 
attempt to put asunder." 

" This doctrine of the brain," says Lewes,f " is un- 
derstood in two different ways by two contending 
schools. The one regards the brain as the original 
agent ; the other regards it as the intermediate instru- 
ment. According to the one, the brain thinks as the 
stomach digests ; according to the other, the brain is 
the instrument of thought, played upon by the mind 
as a piano is played upon by a musician. These two 
schools, however opposed, meet on neutral ground 
when they come to the laws of physiology. ... A 
piano out of tune will yield discordant music, let the 
performer be ever so skillful. A penny-whistle can 
never have the clang of a trumpet. It is obvious, 

tinues: ' Mais la severite de langage ou dc logique que comporte main- 
tenant la physiologie, exige que Ton traite de 1" intelligence humaine 
comme si elle etait le resultat de Taction d'un organe. ... II existe une 
science dont le but est d'apprendre a raisonner justement, c'est la logique; 
mais le jugement errone ou 1' esprit faux tiennent a 1' organisation. II est 
impossible de se changer a cet egard : nous restons tels que la nature nous a 
faits.' " — Precis Elementaire, from Good's Study of Medicine, vol. ii. p. 162. 

* Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, p. 75. 

f Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 13. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



15 



therefore, that on the structure and state of the instru- 
ment will depend the quality of the sounds produced." 
It is curious to observe that the materialistic physi- 
ologists and the metaphysical physiologists diverge 
just at this point. The subject is a legacy bequeathed 
to medicine by a dead and decaying theology.* The 
discussion which it has awakened in the profession of 
medicine resembles the wrangles of the monks of the 
Middle Ages over such questions as the attributes of 
Deity, the heat of hell, and the size of the human 
soul, etc. The result of the discussion has been quite 
as idle and profitless. It is now generally conceded 
that matter and force are each inexplicable, and that, 
in the last analysis, as much is known of one as of the 
other. To the physiologist it is surely enough to 
know, what is no longer disputed, and all that can be 
known, namely, the mutual dependence of matter and 
force, of brain and mind ; and that the principles 
which preside over the well-being of one are equally 
operative upon the destiny of the other. " That 
which perceives," says Dr. Thomas Brown,f " is a part 
of nature as truly as the objects of perception which 
act on it, and, as a part of nature, is itself an object of 
investigation purely physical." And Dr. Haven admits 

* "The habit of viewing mind as an intangible entity, or incorporeal 
essence, which science inherited from theology, prevented men from sub- 
jecting its phenomena to the same method of investigation as other natural 
phenomena." — Maudsley s Gulstonian Lectures on Body and Mind, p. 12. 

f Philosophy of the Human Mind. This comprehensive idea of nature 
is the revival of a very old doctrine. The earliest Greek conception of 
nature included the objective world, simply — earth, fire, water, and an 
active principle, or force — air. " Afterward," says Maine, " the later Greek 
sects, returning to a path from which the greatest intellects of Greece had 
meanwhile strayed, added the moral to the physical world in the conception 
of nature. They extended the term till it embraced not merely the visible 



l6 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

substantially the same doctrine. " The human mind," 
says he, " is strictly a part, and a most important part, 
of nature, unless we exclude man himself from the 
world to which he belongs, and of which he is lord."* 
It may be still further observed, in passing, that from 
the habit of ignoring mental hygiene, by both classes 
of physiologists, or of giving the subject but an insig- 
nificant treatment in the study of the laws of health, 
and leaving to theology what it is the clear province 
of medicine to accomplish, has arisen the custom, by 
no means extinct, of observing and studying mental 
disorders from the purely metaphysical or subjective 
point of view. It has been usually assumed, by the 
dominant school, and tacitly admitted by the other, 
that mind, in the abstract, is a spiritual entity, or an 
" incorporeal essence," separable from the body, as 
force is conceived by many to be separable from mat- 
ter, and independent of the recognized laws of vitality. 
Little attempt has been made, until modern times, to 
analyze its nature from a physiological stand-point, or 
to reduce its phenomena to a strictly scientific basis 
of objective observation. The physical side of men- 
tality has been, for the most part, if not wholly, con- 
fined to a description of the brain and nervous system, 
and the part they play in the corporeal system ; the 

creation, but the thoughts, observances, and aspirations of mankind." — 
Ancient Law, p. 51. 

Nature comprehends all things within the ken of human reason and ob- 
servation. "Not the smallest atom," says Maudsley, "that floats in the 
sunbeam, nor the minutest molecule that vibrates within the microcosm of 
an organic cell, but is bound as a part of the mysterious whole in an inex- 
tricable harmony with the laws by which planets move in their appointed 
orbits, or with the laws which govern the marvelous creations of godlike 
genius." — Maudsley' s Physiology and Pathology of the A find, p. 26. 

* Mental Science, p. 16. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



17 



influence of light, sleep, rest, exercise, and recreation 
on its functions : nothing more. Books of hygiene 
may be consulted in vain for definite information re- 
specting the precise influence of morbific causes and 
agents on the mind, or of rational means of restoring 
and preserving the health of a mind disordered by 
them, especially if the phenomena presented be re- 
moved from the ordinary plane of physical observa- 
tion. Surely, if mind be the most important part of 
man, as Sir William Hamilton and the philosophers 
of his type were pleased to believe, this is a grave 
neglect. A system of hygiene, or of moral philos- 
ophy, which does not recognize the superior excel- 
lence of man's nervous organization ; which appre- 
ciates not the grand distinction and superiority of his 
mentality over that of other animals ; which, in short, 
fails to recognize his grand spirituality, and to per- 
ceive the wide chasm which separates him from all 
other orders of beings in nature, must obviously be 
defective. The works on physiology and hygiene, of 
which there are many admirable in their way, apply 
almost equally well to man as an animal, or to an 
animal as man. The higher functions of the nervous 
system, comprehending the religious element, and the 
influence of physical causes upon its manifestations, 
are but slightly and incidentally touched upon. 
Studies in mental hygiene and therapeutics should 
remedy this obvious deficiency; and a few writers 
have lately been bold enough to risk the charge of 
heresy in opening the discussion.* Among the most 

* If mind be a part of nature, and held in subjection to her laws, it is 
natural to conclude, what indeed is fully demonstrated by the facts of 



1 8 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

prominent works which have taken advanced views 
on the subject is Mr. Graham's "Science of Human 
Life," an able book, but little read, owing to the un- 
popularity of its author's well-known views of dietet- 
ics. " The Constitution of Man," by George Combe, 
tends in the same direction. " The Principles of 
Physiology," by Dr. Andrew Combe, is also an excep- 
tion, in this respect, to the usual works on hygiene ; 
and Dr. Ray's " Mental Hygiene" is an admirable 
monograph, fulfilling, in many respects, the just re- 



mental physiology and pathology, viz., that there is an intimate connection 
between morbific causes and mental disease; between, in other words, sin 
and sickness, immorality and morbid anatomy. Those who read attentively 
the records of criminal trials cannot fail to have been impressed with the 
frequency with which disease and crime are associated together in the 
same person. So constant is this phenomenon in our law-courts, that the 
defense have no difficulty in getting well-informed experts to testify in 
support of the plea of insanity on the part of the culprit. The fact is 
urged by the unthinking public as an evidence of the unreliability of 
medical evidence in such cases. It should rather be regarded as evidence 
of the intimate connection subsisting between crime and disease, for which 
doctors and criminal counsel are, in most cases, assuredly not responsible. 

These facts, in connection with the psychical influence of morbific and 
drug agents, point unmistakably to the ultimate establishment of a science 
of moral therapeutics and pathology. Mr. Lecky, the able author of the 
" History of European Morals," has already anticipated such a result. He 
says : — 

" He who raises moral pathology to a science, expanding, systematizing, 
and applying many fragmentary observations that have already been made, 
will probably take a high place among the master intellects of mankind. 
The fastings and broodings of the mediaeval monk, the medicines for allay- 
ing or stimulating the sexual passions, the treatment of nervous diseases, 
the moral influences of insanity and castration, the researches of phrenol- 
ogy, the moral changes that accompany the successive stages of physical 
development, the instances of diseases which have altered, sometimes per- 
manently, the whole complexion of the character, and have acted through 
the character upon all the intellectual judgments, are examples of the kind 
of facts with which such a science would deal." — History of European 
Morals, vol. i. p. 167. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. IO/ 

quirements of the subject. In conjunction with 
Maudsley's* and Winslow'sf able contributions to 
mental physiology, the subject of mental hygiene 
becomes tolerably comprehensible to those at least 
whose minds are free from the unhappy bias of theo- 
logical tradition, and the fallacious doctrines of the 
earlier physiologists. 

It should be borne in mind that man is a physiolo- 
gical unit. Divide his organization into as many parts 
as we may, his individuality comprehends them all ; 
and the loss of the most inconsequential part destroys 
his identity. In him the animal and the human har- 
moniously blend. The higher attributes of a human 
being, the cerebrum, may be destroyed, and yet 
the animal part of his organization preserve its vital 
integrity. This fact is illustrated in idiocy and im- 
becility. Moreover, M. Flourens and others have 
actual!^ removed the cerebra of birds and other 
animals without impairing the functions of the lower 
animal life. The animal part of man is thus observed 
to be, in a measure, independent of the human, and may 
maintain a separate existence. The characteristically 
human part of his organization, however, is not thus 
independent of the animal organs, but is united to them 
by an inseparable bond. The cerebrum is the flower 
of organic creation, — its supreme coronation. Its 
vital integrity is maintained by the corporeal system. 
The radicle may live and flourish independent of the 
flower; but if the flower be disconnected from the 
radicle, it speedily withers and dies. So is it with the 



* Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, 
f Obscure Diseases of the Mind. 



2o MENTAL INFLUENCE 

human mind : its health and integrity are inseparable 
from a sound body ; and it may be seriously questioned 
if mind in any form or condition is ever separable in 
terrestrial life from the material casement of the nerv- 
ous system. Mental hygiene necessarily comprehends 
the laws and conditions of man's whole being, physi- 
cal and mental, one and inseparable. In respect to 
the corporeal or animal life, let us premise that its 
laws and conditions are well known and appreciated, 
and proceed to the consideration of those of the more 
complex and characteristically mental and human. 

The brain and nervous system may, in one respect, 
be compared to the sensitive plate in the camera, 
registering faithfully all the various and conflicting 
impressions received from without ; but, unlike the 
camera, receiving and registering likewise all those 
from within.* The brain is the centre of the individual 
universe. Through the reflex action of the nerves, 
and vascular circulation, the various diseased states of 
the body are duly, it may be said unceasingly, re- 
corded upon it, modifying its function, and interrupt- 
ing, more or less seriously, the orderly flow and se- 
quence of ideas. Thus it is impossible for a disease, 
however slight or inconsequential, to exist in the most 



* Dr. Combe, whose able work on physiology and hygiene I have before 
alluded to, after admitting the existence in the brain of a distinct mental 
essence, — mind in the abstract, — declares : " It requires, however, to be dis- 
tinctly understood that activity of mind and activity of brain are not only 
inseparable, but that so long as life remains the mental operations are dis- 
tinctly influenced by the condition of the brain." And again : " The brain 
being a part of the animal system and subject to the same general laws as 
the other organs, the reader will not be surprised that I should, as in the 
case of the lungs, state a sound original constitution as the first condition 
of its healthy activity." — The Principles of Physiology, p. 216. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 2 I 

remote extremity of the body without making itself 
morbidly manifest in the brain. The mental effect of 
a mechanical injury, as a cut or a bruise, with a knife 
or other instrument ; the shock coincident with a blow 
or a fall, the dislocation of a joint, or the fracture of a 
limb; or a slight loss of blood or other humors of the 
body, — are frequently similar to those produced on 
the mind by excessive fear, intense anxiety or grief, or 
other powerful emotions. The sight of blood causes 
fainting in some persons ; and I have known strong 
men to sink into complete coma by an unimportant 
cut of a finger, or from the pain of an old tooth, or the 
suffering attending its extraction, and even by the 
sympathy with the trifling pangs incident to that 
operation in others. Indeed, the mutual sympathy 
and reciprocity between mind and body are so intimate 
and strong, that it is impossible to conceive of the 
affection of one without the other being morbidly dis- 
turbed by that affection. " Experience, our only sure 
guide in medical inquiries," says Forbes Winslow,* 
" instructs the physician that a diseased condition of the 
body produces an alteration in the condition of the 
mind ; and that certain emotions of the soul, whether 
of a pleasurable or painful nature, are universally 
attended with reciprocal alterations in the bodily func- 
tions."! Every thought, no less every muscular act, 



* Body and Mind, p. 153. 

f " All mental excitements, therefore, are causes of some degree of disturb- 
ance to the nerves of organic life ; and when violent and frequently re- 
peated, they necessarily induce and permanently establish a morbid irri- 
tability and sympathy throughout the whole domain, generally involving, 
also, the brain and spinal marrow, and especially the brain. Functional 
aberration and derangement necessarily result from this state of things, 
leading to disease and change of structure in the organs. On the other 

3 



22 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

is attended with consentaneous changes in the nervous 
structure ; and there is reason to believe that the 
nature of those changes is modified according to the 
character or quality of the thoughts and emotions ex- 
cited. The exercise of agreeable emotions and ideas is 
highly salutary on the general health and circulation ; 
while painful emotions are well known not only to de- 
stroy the physiological poise and equilibrium, but to 
actually poison the blood and secretions as effectually 
as the absorption of malaria or medicinal and toxical 
agents. This may be effected in part, it is true, from 
arrest or modification of the functions of the excretory 
organs; but that it cannot result wholly from that cause 
seems to be demonstrated by the fact that the exercise 
of different morbid emotions produces different de- 
rangements of the secretions. The milk, for example, 
of an angered mother sickens her child ; but it is not 
known that the effect of grief produces a similar mor- 
bific effect upon her milk. 

Be that as it may, that field of medical inquiry is an 



hand, the mind sympathizes in the most delicate and powerful manner with 
the nerves of organic life in all their general affections and conditions." — 
Graham's Science of Human Life, sees. 304, 305. 

Long ago Descartes observed: " That the soul is so much influenced by 
the constitution of our bodily organs, that if it were possible to find out a 
method of increasing our penetration, it should certainly be sought for in 
medicine." — Quoted from Winslow's Body and Mind, p. 153. 

Dr. Combe, although an adherent of the metaphysical school of philoso- 
phy, frequently lapses to the physiological. "A good deal of observation," 
he observes, " has convinced me that the transmission of imperfectly oxy- 
genated blood to the brain is greatly more influential in the production of 
nervous disease and delicacy of constitution than is commonly imagined." 
— The Principles of Physiology, p. 220. It is impossible to be oblivious to 
the fact that the blood~deranged from other causes may be equally or even 
more vicious and vitiating in its influence on the mind. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



23 



interesting one, and requires a stronger hand than 
mine to work it profitably. Moreover, its cultivation 
is outside the limits of my present task, which is con- 
fined to subjects more easily demonstrable. 

Dr. Johnson facetiously observes, that " every man is 
a rascal as soon as he is sick." Whether he designed 
the remark to be taken in its literal sense or not, there 
is certainly an immense amount of literal truth in it. 
The modification of the morals, passions, and intellect 
is most marked in a variety of physical derangements, 
as all who have been ill even to an inconsiderable de- 
gree can attest. Aside from actual mental aberration, 
consequent on many disorders of the corporeal organs, 
ill humor and nervous irritability may be induced by 
very slight disturbances of the general health, as a cold 
in the head, disordered stomach, privation of sleep, etc. 
Thus it is that peculiarities of climate, sudden atmos- 
pheric changes, and unwholesome, vitiated air, exer- 
cise an important influence upon the mental functions, 
as well as upon bodily disease. Abodes in dark, over- 
heated, ill-ventilated apartments, where the air is con- 
fined, and in consequence loaded with the effete debris 
and noxious vapors necessarily incident to organic 
life, are prolific of manifold derangements. The blood 
becomes poisoned, and through it the fountain of 
thought and feeling is correspondingly corrupted. 
In a small way these vitiating causes and conse- 
quences may be observed in the homes of the indi- 
gent poor in any large city. Poor air, unwholesome 
food, ill health, vice, poverty, and crime go hand in 
hand, and are mutual concomitants of each other. On 
a larger scale, the moral influences of unwholesome 
climates and conditions are illustrated in the lives of 



24 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



various peoples and nations. The characteristically 
stimulating climate of the United States induces nervous 
restlessness, mental activity, desire for stimulants, and a 
tendency to suicidal mania. The climate of the whole 
Atlantic coast is particularly irritating and unfavorable 
to long life and good morals. Nor is this atmospheric 
condition alone peculiar to the United States. It is 
said by Dr. Ray,* that " during the prevalence of the 
sirocco wind in Malta, Sicily, and the south of Italy, 
there is observed to be a great increase of irritability 
and excitement, and nervous disease is more readily 
developed where the predisposition exist. The damp 
winds of La Plata produce a general lassitude and re- 
laxation, accompanied by remarkable irritability and 
ill humor. It is a common thing for men among the 
better classes to shut themselves up in their houses 
during its continuance, and lay aside all business until 
it has passed ; while among the lower classes cases 
of quarreling and bloodshed are more frequent." 

Moreover, nothing is susceptible of an easier de- 
monstration than that the love of intoxicating drinks 
is largely influenced by climatic and atmospheric con- 
ditions. Drunkenness is almost unknown among the 
dusky inhabitants of equatorial regions ; while the 
vice advances with an ever increasing ratio as we ap- 
proach the more northern latitudes. The love of 
stimulants is not uncommon to man in all latitudes 
and under all circumstances ; but it requires the 
colder regions of the north to develop that love into a 
passion, and to convert the innocent jollity of a south- 
ern and eastern savage into a wild and brutal Saxon 

* Mental Hygiene, p. 90. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



25 



of North America. America is peculiarly prolific of 
the vice of intoxication. The quiet and ease-loving 
inhabitant of Europe, although an habitual drinker, 
falls readily into the gravest habits of intoxication 
upon emigrating to the western continent. Mr. John 
Jay, our minister to Austria, says that he has ob- 
served more drunkenness in a single day in New 
York than in a whole year in Vienna.* Yet the use 
of alcoholic and fermented beverages is more general 
in the Austrian capital and dominions than it is in 
New York and America. 

Statistics of crime, moreover, prove that the morals 
of mankind are influenced in no small degree by the 
succession of the seasons, as well as by sudden mete- 
orological changes of the atmosphere. Causes that 
heat the blood and depress the pulse and physical 
energies inflame the passions and lower the tone of 
the moral energies. Disease and crime are, accord- 
ingly, more prevalent in torrid climates, and in the hot 
seasons of temperate climates; /and it is impossible to 
estimate the measure of one's responsibility for his 
acts, or to determine with precision how much of our 
benevolence and kindly intent are the result of cheer- 
ful moral surroundings, good digestion, and favorable 
wind and sunshine, and how much of one's badness and 
cheerlessness to attribute to the opposite physical and 
meteorological conditions. It is certainly true that 
very good people sometimes find it exceedingly diffi- 
cult to fulfil the just requirements of an enlightened 
conscience, or even to restrain impulses peculiar to a 

* Letter to Professor H. J. Bowditch, Boston, Mass. Vide Second 
Annual Report of the State (Mass.) Board of Health on the Subject of 
Intemperance. Boston, 1872. 



26 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

decidedly vicious nature ; and that very bad people 
experience no difficulty sometimes in being good 
and well-behaved, and both from causes inexplicable 
to themselves, and least of all deserving either praise 
or blame. On this subject Forbes Winslow forcibly 
remarks : — 

^>*ln some conditions of nervous disorder the slight- 
est meteorological changes give rise to singular alter- 
nations of despondency, despair, hope and joy, so com- 
pletely does the mind succumb to physical influences. 
I have known a person subject to attacks of suicidal 
melancholia during the prevalence of a cold, blight- 
ing, depressing east wind, who appeared happy, con- 
tented, and free from all desire to injure himself, under 
other and more congenial conditions of the atmos- 
phere ! An Italian artist never could reside a winter 
in England without the distressing idea of self-destruc- 
tion suggesting itself to his morbidly-depressed mind. 
I have known natives of France, accustomed, from 
early life, to the buoyant air and bright azure sky of 
that country, sink into profound states of mental de- 
spondency if compelled to reside many weeks in Lon- 
don during the earlier portion of the winter season."* 
Our author proceeds to relate a case of a gentleman 
"suffering from severe mental dejection," who was 
painfully depressed when the sky was overcast with 
black clouds, and cheered and comforted by the glory 
of the returning sunshine. I have myself repeatedly 
observed similar effects from clouds and sunshine 
upon such invalids ; and a patient of that class now 
under advisement finds it exceedingly uncomfortable 

* Obscure Diseases of the Brain, p. 165. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



2/ 



to occupy a shaded room, or a room with a northern 
exposure; and another is always gloomy and dis- 
consolate on rainy days, and buoyant and happy when 
the air is clear and sunny. Hypochondriacal people, 
in general, are deeply influenced by the weather, and 
especially require a maximum of balmy air and sun- 
light. The poet Cowper bears testimony to this truth 
in his own unhappy experience. In one of his letters 
to a friend, he says : " I rise cheerless and distressed, 
and brighten as the sun goes on." Such are some of 
the effects of external, atmospheric conditions upon 
the nervous functions of man. 

Emerson finds confirmation of these facts in the 
promptings of his own intuition. In one of his best 
essays he says : " When our higher faculties are in 
activity we are domesticated, and awkwardness and 
discomfort give place to natural and agreeable move- 
ments. It is noticed that the consideration of the 
great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a 
dignity of mind and an indifference to death. The 
influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, 
appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. 
Even a high dome, and the expansive interior of a 
cathedral, have a sensible effect on our manners. I 
have heard that stiff people lose something of their 
awkwardness under high ceilings and in spacious 
halls. I think sculpture and painting have an effect 
to teach these manners and abolish hurry."* 

The influence of climate, seasons, sanitary condi- 
tions, and certain drugs and morbific agents, upon the 
more purely animal functions has long been under- 

* The Conduct of Life, p. 138. 



2 8 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

stood, in a general way, by physicians and socialistic 
philosophers. The effects of the same agents and in- 
fluences upon the mind, however, have not received, 
until more recently, any considerable degree of atten- 
tion, for the reason, as has been already stated, that its 
phenomena were considered to be independent of the 
laws of nature and sense, derived, in fact, from a source 
above the realm of finite comprehension, and which it 
would indeed be the grossest presumption for cold, 
irreverent reason to enter, in an attempt to pry into 
its sacred secrets. The interesting studies of MM. 
Quetelet,* Guerry,f Esquirol,J and others, early in 
the present century, concerning the mental influence 
of climate, seasons, social conditions, etc., opened a 
new field for reflection and observation. In the preface 
to his remarkable work, the " Science of Man," first 
published in Paris in 1835, M. Quetelet boldly affirmed 
that society was responsible, in a measure, for the 
crimes of the individual, by affording the " facilities 
for their development." " It is the social state," he 
says, " in some measure, which prepares these crimes, 
and the criminal is merely the instrument to execute 
them."§ If this doctrine were heretical then, it has 
ceased to be regarded as wholly so now ; for the inti- 
mate relation of crimes and diseases — diseases which 
the progress of sanitary science has demonstrated, in 
every civilized community upon the planet, to be 
within the control of civilized society — is a fact of 
common observation. He must, indeed, have a crude 

* Sur l'l-Iomme, et le Developpement des Facultes. Paris, 1835. 
f Essai sur la Statistique Morale de la France, 1830. 
% Annales d' Hygiene— Remarques sur la Statistique des Alienes, 1830. 
§ Preface to the English translation, page 6. Edinburgh, 1842. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



2 9 



sense of justice, who supposes that the individual acts 
committed against the peace and order of society are 
to be attributed alone to the criminal, when the merest 
novice in philosophy can demonstrate that that very 
criminal is to a great extent a creature of conditions and 
environments, of antecedents which he did not make 
and could not control; that, in fact, he himself is 
sinned against as well as sinning, and has just cause 
of grievance against society for permitting the exist- 
ence of conditions which breed in him ill health and 
morbid impulses without end, and then turning upon 
him the avenging hand of remorseless law ! The 
criminal has as clear a case against a community 
which permits the existence of avoidable causes of dis- 
ease and crime as the man who falls into an unguarded 
pit in the public highway has against the city or vil- 
lage corporation where the incident occurs, or as the 
victim of a railroad accident has against the criminal 
carelessness of its managers. The cases are clearly 
analogous, as I apprehend them ; but society does not, 
unhappily, yet appreciate the analogy which makes her 
a party to such grave responsibilities. She is slow in 
discerning relations not apparent upon the surface ; 
and while she exercises good sense with railroad com- 
panies and other incorporated bodies in holding them 
responsible for the lives and limbs of their patrons, 
imposing heavy fines for the consequences of their 
neglect of duty, she has Bibles and tracts, handcuffs 
and hemp, for those whom her wrongs have too often 
goaded into making retaliatory reprisals upon indi- 
viduals : I say retaliatory reprisals advisedly, for this 
is the view most intelligent criminals take of the 
matter. 



30 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



The difficulties environing this subject arise from the 
failure to correctly apprehend the operation of moral 
causes, and the just relation of the individual to society. 
The justice of holding corporations responsible for 
the evils growing out of manifest neglect in the per- 
formance of their functions is universally recognized, 
except by the corporations themselves ; the propriety 
of making corporate communities answerable to the 
individual for the consequences of infectious and pesti- 
lential diseases was long since openly advanced in 
high places.* But it remains for the modern mind to 
discern that moral disorders have also their avoidable 
causes, which are as fixed in their laws of operation as 
are the more obvious physical laws ; and that the 
community which neglects their observation and en- 
forcement shares with the culprit the guilt of murder, 
theft, and other crimes which occur in consequence 
of such neglect, in the same way, precisely, as if the 
evil had been a Westfield explosion, a Car-Rock dis- 
aster, or an influx of cholera or typhus. f 



* " To every evil the Author of nature has kindly prepared an antidote. 
Pestilential fevers furnish no exception to this remark. The means of pre- 
venting them are as much under the power of human reason and industry 
as the means of preventing the evils of lightning or common fire. I am so 
satisfied of the truth of this opinion, that I look for the time when our courts 
of law shall punish cities and villages for permitting any of the sources of 
bilious and malignant fevers to exist within their jurisdiction." — Dr. Ben- 
jamin Rush. 

f " It is absurd to suppose that the crimes in great cities are attributable 
altogether to the free agency of the poor wretches who are transported or 
hung for them. The nation which can and does not prevent the existence 
of a criminal class is responsible collectively for the evil done by this class. 
This we can see plainly enough, although the exact distribution of the re- 
sponsibility among the different members of society may be impossible to 
determine." — E. B. Taylor, in the Nation, 1872. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



31 



Objection is urged against these views that they are 
opposed to the dogmas of free will and human ac- 
countability. They do, certainly, restrict individual 
accountability, and subordinate human volition to 
moral and physical laws. But what the individual 
loses in this respect is put upon the shoulders of so- 
ciety; so that in the end man — the average man of 
Quetelet — is relieved of no burden or responsibility, 
but, on the contrary, is held more justly and properly 
responsible for all his acts, neglects, and their attend- 
ant conseqences ; while it frees an inscrutable Provi- 
dence from the odium unjustly charged to him by an 
inscrutable blindness, of causing the more obscure evils 
that afflict the social state. If it be sacrilege to advo- 
cate truths and principles inconsistent with the stability 
of theological dogmas, it is impious to impute to Prov- 
idence those countless crimes and casualties which 
occur outside the confines of a narrow and antiquated 
philosophy. 

It is foreign to the purpose of an essay of this kind, 
however, to enter upon an extended discussion con- 
cerning the bearings of the principles herein advo- 
cated, or of the numerous facts adduced in their sup- 
port. M. Quetelet, in the volume referred to, has 
collated in a tabular form many facts from the writ- 
ings of Esquirol and others, which serve to show in 
clearer light than argument can do the regularity of 
moral phenomena under the joint operation of moral 
and physical laws, and man's complete subordination 
to his environments. We have already referred to the 
remarkable influence which is exercised by seasons 
and climate upon the mental state. The following table 
from Esquirol shows the influence of the seasons upon 



32 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



mental alienation among both sexes, in France, at 
Charenton :* 

Influence of the Seasons upon Insajiity. 





Admissions, 










1828- 


1829. 


Admis- 






Months. 






sions be- 
fore 1829. 


Cures. 


Deaths. 








Men. 


Women. 








January . 


42 


21 


37 


11 


21 


February- 






40 


33 


49 


10 


24 


March 






49 


25 


53 


10 


16 


April 






50 


38 


58 


16 


22 


May. 






58 


36 


44 


15 


18 


June. 






55 


34 


70 


19 


18 


July . 






52 


36 


61 


23 


18 


August 






45 


24 


64 


22 


13 


September 




48 


26 


47 


22 


11 


October . 




44 


47 


49 


24 


3° 


November 




47 


22 


35 


22 


22 


December 




35 


28 


52 


15 


8 


Total . 


565 


37° 


619 


209 


221 



It will be observed, according to this table, that in- 
sanity is evidently more rife in hot weather, and that 
its decline in the season of autumn is quite in accord 
with what one would suppose to be natural, with the 
decline of the apparent exciting cause, — excessive 
heat. 

The same author shows, also, the connection of age 
with the same disease. It would not appear, however, 
that any attempt was made to discriminate in the 
table between the differing types and varieties of 
insanity. 



Quetelet's Science of Man, p. 76. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 33 

Influence of Age upon Insanity. 





At Charenton, 




z 


At Charenton, 




before 


1829. 






bi s £ 


1829 to 1833. 


Ages. 






Ratio. 


§*3 






Admis- 
sions. 


Cures . 


Men. 


Women. 


15 to 20 years . . 


22 


II 


2.0 


24 


24 


II 


20 to 25 " 






6 7 


3° 


2.2 


79 


65 


23 


25 to 30 " 






86 


40 


2.2 


109 


78 


31 


30 to 35 " 






98 


36 


2.7 


134 


79 


47 


35 to 40 






81 


25 


3-3 


125 


65 


64 


40 to 45 






79 


21 


3-8 


129 


64 


59 


45 to 50 " 






72 


14 


5-i 


131 


52 


44 


5° to 55 " 






52 


12 


43 


108 


54 


37 


55 to 60 " 






21 


6 


3-5 


5i 


32 


20 


60 to 65 






21 


9 


2.3 


63 


33 


18 


65 to 70 






6 


1 


6.0 


24 


14 


9 


70 and upwards 






14 


4 


3-5 


45 


6 


7 



This table is highly instructive, particularly in 
showing the bearings of age upon the disease in ques- 
tion, and the comparative predisposition of the sexes 
to mental derangements. Man is more subject to 
the disease in early manhood, at the period of his 
greatest intellectual activity. Its greatest activity in 
woman, on the other hand, is the period preceding the 
change of life. Men at all ages, particularly that of 
youth, are more subject to it than women, except in 
the very evening of life, when women exceed them in 
liability. It was this fact, constant in the phenomena 
of madness, of the greater liability to attacks of the 
disease during the period of the greatest intellectual 
activity, that led M. Esquirol to declare insanity to be 
a disease of civilization. 

The following table illustrates more forcibly the 
comparative liability of the sexes to the disease : it is 
also from Esquirol : 

4 



34 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

Comparative Liability of the Sexes to Insanity. 





Paris. 


Norway. 


Ages. 
















Men. 


Women. 


Total. 


Women. 


Men. 


Total. 


Before 20 years . . 


436 


348 


784 


141 


188 


329 


From 20 to 25 . 


624 


563 


1,187 


83 


IOI 


184 


25 to 30 . . 


635 


727 


1,362 


88 


97 


185 


" 30 to 40 . . 


1 441 


1607 


3,048 


173 


214 


387 


" 40 to 50 . . 


1298 


1479 


2,777 


155 


150 


305 


" 50 to 60 . . 


847 


954 


1,801 


115 


128 


243 


" 60 and upwards 


875 


1035 


1,910 


140 


117 


257 


Total .... 


6156 


6713 


12,869 


895 


995 


1890 



Then again, in the morbid phenomenon, mental, of 
suicide, may be observed the evidence of man's moral 
subjection to physical environments. M. Caspar has 
attentively studied the subject of suicide as it is affected 
by climate, age, sex, etc. Suicide, according to the 
researches of that author, is far more prevalent among 
men than women; in cities and large towns than in 
the rural districts ; in summer than in the cooler 
months. It is rare in childhood ; has a period of ex- 
acerbation in early manhood; of decline at the prime 
of life ; another period of exacerbation from the ages 
of fifty to sixty, and another period of decline toward 
the evening of life. The table below shows, in various 
localities, the 

Influence of the Seasons upon Suicide. 



Months. 


Berlin. 

1812-1822. 


Hamburg. 
1816-1822. 


West- 
minster. 

l8l2 1 -l82I. 


Paris. 
Six years. 


Jan., Feb., and March. 
April, May, and June . 
July, Aug., and Sept. . 
Oct., Nov., and Dec. . 


109 

155 
173 

145 


39 
3i 
41 
38 


67 
55 
60 
46 


42 
58 
61 

31 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



35 



The followinsr table, showing: the influences con- 
tingent upon the different epochs of life and their 
relation to suicide, is made up by M. Quetelet from 
the works of MM. Caspar, at Berlin, and Beitrage, 
at Geneva:* 







Suicide and 


Age. 




Ages. 


Berlin. 


Geneva. 


1818-1824. 


1820-1826. 


Below 10 years 


* ) 




From 10 to 15 years 










17 r 


5 




' 15 to 20 " . 










32 j 






' 20 to 25 " . 










30 1 






' 25 to 30 " . 










25 \ 


24 




' 3° to 35 " • 










12 \ 






' 35 to 40 " . 










9 j 






' 40 to 50 " . 










34 } 

32 1 


45 




' 50 to 60 " . 














' 60 to 70 " . 










17 ) 






' 70 to 80 " . 










9 f 


21 


80 and upwards 










2 J 




Total 


220 


95 



Influence of Knowledge upon Crime. — The intimate 
relation which subsists between ignorance and crime 
has already been referred to. It is too obvious in the 
present state of our knowledge to require facts and 
argument, that as man rises in the scale of being and 
more fully appreciates his higher relations to the di- 
vine, the further removed is he from thu dominion of 
the wayward impulses of his lower nature. 

The demand which is at the present time heard, 
from all the great centres of modern civilization, is, 
in view of this new-born conviction, for compulsory 



Quetelet's Science of Man, p. 81. 



36 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

education; for it is manifestly more economical to the 
state to provide free schools for children than alms- 
houses, jails, and penitentiaries for grown-up beggars 
and ignorant and lawless poor. The acceptance of 
this view of the relation of ignorance and immorality 
marks an era in the world's mental progress ; and yet 
it is but a single step on the part of society towards a 
just appreciation of her obligation to provide for the 
moral welfare of her members. It is her duty, as we 
have observed, to protect the individual, as she only can 
do, in his condition of dependent helplessness, from all 
those agents and influences of demoralization, as de- 
fective generation, (ante-natal,) foul air, impure water, 
and unwholesome food, dark, unclean, over-crowded, 
and unventilated abodes, pestilence, the vicissitudes of 
the seasons, ignorance of the laws of his surroundings, 
both moral and physical, etc. These conditions are all, 
every one, indispensable to good morals, no less than to 
good health, but such as the individual by himself, un- 
aided, could never achieve, and which only society can 
and ought to secure to him. I may be pardoned, per- 
haps, for insisting upon the necessity of proper condi- 
tions as antecedent to wholesome moral and physical 
progress. 

In doing so it is unnecessary, I hope, for me to dis- 
claim any desire to speak in derogation of religious 
influences, except only to the extent which the exi- 
gencies of the occasion and the interest of truth require. 
When reading Mr. Mayhew's voluminous work on 
" The London Poor" some time since,* I was forcibly 
impressed with the statement that " the great need of 

* Preface. Published in 1852. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



37 



the London poor is the word of God." When one 
reflects upon that statement, in full view of the fact 
that hundreds of thousands of London poor occupied 
underground apartments and sub-cellar kennels unfit 
for animals above the order that crawl, over-crowded 
at that, without light and ventilation; scantily supplied 
with water of miserable quality, with absolutely no 
means of cleansing either body or the scanty supply 
of rags upon their backs ; eating, for the most part, 
the refuse of kitchens, understocked at best; having 
nothing to read, and unable to read even what they 
had ; the word of God given under such circumstances 
seems to me like adding insult to injury. Misplaced 
good is positive evil. To throw Bibles before such 
squalid wretchedness, is not pitching pearls before 
swine, but it is mocking the hungry and impoverished 
with crude, inappropriate, and indigestible matter. It 
is giving pearls for food ; baptism for baths ; piety for 
pure air; the light of Revelation for the light of 
heaven. When religion indulges such incongruity it 
merits contempt rather than respect. It is faith with- 
out works, with the usual result. Good intentions 
there may be ; but good intentions to be fruitful must 
have wise adaptation. Hell is said to be paved with 
good intentions ! 

On the next page we submit some figures from 
Quetelet, compiled from the Belgian prisons, which 
may serve to elucidate the relation of ignorance and 
crime. 



33 



MENIAL INFLUENCE 






The Relation of Ignorance and Crime* 



Intellectual State 


Absolute Number. 


Relative Number. 


Accused in 


ndemned 

Belgium, 

1833- 


Accused in 


-a j- 


of the Accused. 




France. j 


France. 


= 5 

-O 1) 00 














1828-29. 


1830-31. 


o.H 
1,972 


1828-29. 


1830-31. 


c3.s 


Could not read 
or write 


1 


8,689 


8,919 


61 


61 


19 


Could read and 


) 














write imper- 
fectly . . 
Could read and 
write well . 


1 
} 


3,805 
I.509 


3.873 
1,455 


472 
} 


27 
10 


27 
10 


15 

34 


Had received a 


1 

J 






I.776 






superior edu- 
cation to the 


286 


3i9 


J 


2 





J 


ist degree . 














Total . . . 


14,289 


I4-5 66 


3220 


IOO 


IOO 


IOO 



According to these data, while the diffusion of 
knowledge would not wholly depopulate the prisons, 
it would reduce the number confined in them to a 
minimum of their present population. Below I append 
a table from the same learned author, giving the ratio 
of sex to crime under similar conditions and influences. 
The table is highly creditable to the moral superiority 
of woman; but it shows also, as M. Quetelet says, 
"how much influence our habits and social position 
have on crime."t 



* Quetelet's Science of Man, p. 85. 



f Ibid., p. 92. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



39 



Comparative View of the Relation of Ignorance and Crime to Sex. 



Intellectual state. 


Men. 


w 

Women. 


Ratio 
1828-29. 


Men. 


Women. 


Ratio 
1830-31. 


Unable to read or j 
write . . . J 


6,537 


2152 


3-° 


6,877 


2042 


3-3 


Able to read ancH 














write imperfect- > 
ly . . . . J 


3,308 


497 


6.6 


3,422 


451 


7.6 


Could read and j 
write well . J 


1,399 


no 


12.7 


1-373 


82 


16.7 


Had received anl 














excellent edu- ! 
cation to the ist j 


283 


5 


56.6 


314 


5 


62.8 


degree . . J 

Intellectual state ) 

not mentioned, j 


374 


104 


3-6 


2 








11,901 


2868 


4.2 


11,988 


2580 


4.6 



The Influence of the Seasons upon Crime. — I have 
treated this subject at some length in another part 
of this chapter ; but before taking final leave of a 
most interesting subject, I cannot forbear to add a 
tabular argument upon it. It will be observed that 
there is a close analogy between the causes which in- 
fluence suicides and mania and those which exert a 
marked influence upon crime. To my mind the co- 
incidence is sufficiently striking to identify them in 
the same category of causes of morbid psychology. 
The table which is found on the following page has 
been compiled from the "Comptes Generaux de la 
Justice." 



4 



MENTAL IX FLUE NCR 



Influence of the Seasons upon Crime. 









Crimes 


AGAINST. 


Ratio 


Crimes 


AGAINST. 


Ratio 














Persons. 


Prop- 


1827-28. 




Prop- 


1830-31. 






erty. 






erty. 




January 


282 


I.095 


3-89 


189 


666 


3-52 


"February 






272 


910 


3-35 


194 


563 


2.90 


March 






335 


968 


2.89 


205 


602 


2.94 


April . 






314 


841 


2.68 


197 


548 


2.78 


May . 






381 


844 


2.22 


213 


569 


2.67 


Tune , 






414 


850 


2.05 


208 


602 


2.90 


July . 






379 


828 


2.18 


188 


5oi 


2.66 


August 






382 


934 


2.44 


247 


596 


2.41 


September 






355 


896 


2.52 


176 


584 


3-32 


October 






285 


926 


3-25 


207 


586 


2.83 


November 






301 


961 


3.20 


223 


651 


2-95 


December 






347 


i,i5 2 


3-33 


181 


691 


3-82 


Total . 


3847 


11,205 


2-77 


2428 


7159 


2.94 i 



M. Quetelet, in whose able work, before quoted, I 
find the table, remarks the coincidences above alluded 
to. He writes: "We can also compare the numbers 
of this table with those which I have given to show 
the influence of seasons on the development of aliena- 
tion, and we shall find the most remarkable coinci- 
dences, especially for crimes against persons, which 
would appear to be most usually dependent on failure 
of the reasoning powers."* 

Insanity and Crime. — A comparison of the statistics 
of crime and of mental disease, such as we have, shows 
that the frequently occurring identity of the etiology 
of the two classes of morbid psychology is by no means 
a chance phenomenon. Some statistics recently pub- 



* Quetelet's Science of Man, p. 92. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



41 



lished in England indicate that the ratio of insane to sane 
criminals is "thirty-four times as great as the ratio of 
lunatics to the whole population of England; or if we 
take half the population to represent the adults which 
supply the convict prisons, we shall still have the crim- 
inal lunatics in excess in the high proportion of 17 
to I !" The following table, constructed from figures 
furnished by Dr. Wm. A. Guy, F.R.S., in an elaborate 
paper on " Insanity and Crime," read before the Statist- 
ical Society, London, 1869,* places the subject in as 
clear a light as it is possible to do in the present im- 
perfect state of statistical knowledge on the subject : 



The Connection of Crime and Insanity. 



Total Popula- Aggre 
tion of England 'gate Num- 
and Wales, ber of Lu 
1867. natics 



21,429,508 



35,758 



Ratio 
per 1000 
Inhabit- 



I.67 



Total 
Number of 

Sane 
Criminals. 



Total I Aggregate 
Number of Number of 



Insane 
Criminals. 



39 6 



Sane and 

Insane 
Criminals. 



7294 



Ratio 
per 1000 
Criminals. 



57 



These figures certainly justify the conclusion at 
which Dr. Guy arrives, and which I have endeavored 
to establish, namely, " that the criminal population is 
much more liable to insanity than the community at 
large," only with the statement reversed thus : the in- 
sane population is much more liable to crime, than the 
community at large. 

Let us now turn from general to some more special 
effects of corporeal disease on the mind. 

Fevers of the simplest type produce confusion of 
the mind, so that an individual, if in the habit of writ- 



* Journal of Statistical Society, vol. xxxii. pp. 166-67. 



42 



ME NT A L I NFL UE A 'CE 



ing, finds it difficult to collect his thoughts or to ex- 
press himself connectedly. The more serious parox- 
ysms of fever destroy the orderly procession of ideas 
altogether, and at the same time morbidly impress the 
affectional and emotional powers. So sensitive is the 
brain to bodily impressions and conditions, that de- 
rangements of the latter may often be detected soonest 
in the former. If a child, he is easily teased, and hard 
to please; cries on slight pretexts ; is combative and 
obstinate. All this is unlike him, perhaps, and it is 
generally agreed that he is sick. If a woman, she is 
morose, peevish, or sensitive ; takes more than her 
usual delight in giving " curtain lectures," etc. If a 
man, he is irritable ; everything goes wrong ; his ac- 
counts won't balance ; he is taciturn ; out of patience 
with the children ; does not refrain, as usual, from 
scolding his wife (when, perhaps, she deserves it) ! 
His conduct is unnatural, and his friends know that 
he is ill, although no derangement of the bodily func- 
tions can yet be detected. 

Moreover, particular diseases produce characteristic 
mental affections and disturbances of the sensorium. 
An onset of gout, or rheumatism, induces ill humor, 
irascibility; gastric derangement produces melan- 
cholia; inflammation of the liver excites hypochon- 
driasis ; inflammation of the lungs causes a variety of 
beautiful hallucinations, etc. Many of the more seri- 
ous forms of fever are sadly demoralizing to the mind. 
Ague and fever furnish an illustration. The best of 
Christians, it is believed, find it difficult, and some of 
them impossible, to maintain a reputation for a good 
moral character under an aggravated attack of that 
disease. The wide diffusion of that form of malaria 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 43 

is certainly highly destructive of morals ; and a 
remedy that can successfully cope with it deserves to 
be ranked among the choicest moral agents. The in- 
troduction of the "Jesuits' powder" (Peruvian bark) into 
England, in the seventeenth century, did more, by the 
cure of ague, from which thousands died, and many 
more were mentally demoralized, annually, to correct 
the gross immorality of those times than any reform in 
the government and laws, or the pious precepts of 
over-pious Dissenters. Typhus has been known to im- 
pair the moral perceptions, and it has, also, sometimes 
restored them. Dr. Tuke* details the case of a 
chronically-demented person, whose only interlude of 
reason for many years was during the delirium of fever. 
An eruption of measles, or variola, has frequently 
been known to invigorate the moral and intellectual 
powers. In general, it may be observed, that eruptive 
fevers leave a salutary impression on the mind. I 
have myself observed several cases of good recov- 
eries from measles, scarlet fever, and variola, followed 
by the eradication of petty vices and perversities from 
the character. Such results are certainly very happy 
compensations for the infliction of very disagreeable 
maladies. 

The effects of gastric disorder upon the mind and 
morals have been alluded to. The peevishness, mo- 
roseness, mental disquiet, and morbid hatefulness of 
children with sour stomachs, or some other equally 
slight functional derangement of that organ, is a mat- 
ter of common observation by parents and nurses the 
world over; and this cause alone is prolific of more 

* Vide Maudsley's Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, p. 260. 



44 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



hard scolding and vigorous bare-bottom spanks than 
all other varieties of inbred or acquired depravity put 
together. The moral derangements from this source, 
in the adult, are among the most unhappy and invet- 
erate in the long catalogue ; and they lie at the 
foundation, source, fountain-head, of many of the 
crimes and misdemeanors that disgrace the court- 
calendar of civilization. " The despondency and irri- 
tability of the dyspeptic," says Dr. Black,* " are 
burdens grievous to be borne. Miserable in his 
gloom, pleasure is impossible; and from the merest 
trifles spring mountains of suspicion, hatred, jealousy, 
and revenge." 

Space will not permit me to give more than this 
brief passing glance at a very disagreeable, but in- 
structive picture. It will suffice, perhaps, to indicate 
the intimate relations of body and mind, of crime and 
disease; and to show the reason why no mind can be 
certainly sound, in all respects, that is nourished by 
blood circulating through a body diseased. 

" Do we sufficiently estimate," says Winslow, " in 
our appreciation of others, the effects of physical dis- 
ease upon the character and action of those upon 
whose conduct we are sometimes called to adjudicate 
and pronounce judgment? How slight are the 
changes in the corporeal health ! how subtle the va- 
riation in the delicate organization of the brain, that 
precede and accompany remarkable alterations in the 
moral and intellectual character ! The brave and 
heroic become as timid and bashful as coy maidens, 
in particular states of ill health. Mild, inoffensive, 

* The Ten Laws of Health, p. 91. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



45 



and humane men are driven to acts of desperation 
and cruelty, under the influence of certain physical 
diseases disturbing and deranging the operations of 
thought."* 

Again : the influence of medicinal and toxical 
agents on the mind is analogous to that of bodily dis- 
ease. " If the state of the blood be vitiated," says 
Maudsley,f "by reason of some poison bred in the 
body, or introduced into it from without, the mental 
functions may be seriously deranged. We are able, 
indeed, by means of the drugs at our command, to 
perform all sorts of experiments on the mind: we can 
suspend its action for a time by chloral or chloro- 
form ; can exalt its function by small doses of opium 
or moderate doses of alcohol ; can pervert them, pro- 
ducing an artificial delirium, by the administration of 
large doses of belladonna and Indian hemp." Cer- 
tainly, this is all true, and much more, also, of a 
similar nature. Certain drugs, in their secondary and 
permanent effect, possess the property of radically 
corrupting the ordinary procession of ideas ; of per- 

* Obscure Diseases of the Brain, p. 164. And Feuchterslcben says: 
" Could we penetrate into the secret foundation of human events, we 
should frequently find the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines 
of another, whom the former endeavored to inspire with sympathy in his 
fate at a moment when the frame of mind of the latter was affected by 
impeded secretion. An hour later, and his fortune would have been made." 
— Ibid., foot-note, p. 165. 

f Body and Mind, p. 90. " Sometimes a man, who is patient in the en- 
joyment of health, becomes passionate, violent, capricious, and unbearable, 
or impatient and despairing, when he is ill ; or those formerly chaste and 
modest often become lascivious and shameless. It is frequently the case 
that a sensible man becomes stupid in sickness, whereas, on the contrary, 
a weak mind is rendered stronger, and a man of slow temperament acquires 
great presence of mind and resolution." — Hahnemann's Organon of Medi- 
cine, foot-note to sec. 212. 

5 



46 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

verting the moral feelings, character, and intellectual 
judgments, so that the victim is no longer exactly 
the being that God made him. These properties are 
peculiar to narcotic and intoxicating agents in gen- 
eral, as opium, tobacco, hasheesh, belladonna, hyoscy- 
amus, stramonium, henbane, alcohol, etc. 

It is interesting to observe the property which some 
of our best-known drugs have of exciting in the mind 
peculiar psychical effects. The destructive mania pro- 
duced by overdoses of belladonna; the jealous furore 
of hyoscyamus ; the religious melancholy of pulsatilla 
anemone ; the obstinate self-will and combative humor 
of sulphur or chamomilla; the ill humor and pas- 
sionate irritability of nux strychnos ; the moral per- 
version of mercury ; the dejected and sorrowful humor 
of ignatia, lycopodium, and a few other drugs ; the 
lascivious influences of Peruvian bark ; the paralyzing 
effect of opium on conjugal love and the sexual in- 
stinct; the intellectual ideation of the same drug; the 
maddening, vicious, and profane impulses of alcohol; 
the morbid fear and cowardice of stramonium ; the 
quieting, soothing, and sensuous hyperesthesia of 
tobacco ; the intellectual delusions of hasheesh and 
stramonium, etc., are a few prominent examples of the 
psychical properties of medicinal agents, well known 
to all good students of therapeutics and materia 
medica. It is not unlikely that drug agents may yet 
be discovered which will supplement, in their action on 
the mental functions, all the faculties and sensorial 
impulses of the mind ; and be able thus, according to 
the circumstances and occasion of their use, to exalt 
the weak faculties and restrain the power and activity 
of the strong ones. The power of disease to modify 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



47 



the mental characteristics has already been observed ; 
and it is generally agreed among therapeutists that 
medicines act on the same principles that morbific 
agents in general do. " There is no difference in prin- 
ciple," says Dr. Martin Paine, "as to their absolute 
action. In certain remedial quantities, many may in- 
duce, in the healthy organism, various degrees of 
disease with as much certainty as those agents which 
are called morbific."* They enter the circulating 
system and are carried to every part of the organic 
domain, acting on it, and are in turn acted upon, 
absorbed into the structure, and become a component 
of every fibre and nerve-cell of every organ of the 
body. Thus do they penetrate and influence the 
inmost source of mental power in a characteristic 
manner. It may not be unprofitable to examine, in 
some detail, the mental effects of a few substances 
of questionable utility, but in general use, among 
mankind. In the first place, however, it is import- 
ant to notice the general bearings of diet on the 
processes of the mind, both as to its quality and 
quantity. 

I. In respect to the essentials of a proper diet for 
man, the scientific world are at loggerheads. The 
chemists claim that an article of food which meets all 
the demands of nutrition must have represented in 
its elementary constituents all the chemical elements 
of which the human body is composed. Moreover, 
there must be carbonaceous food to give warmth, and 
nitrogenous food to furnish the requisite flesh and 
strength, — to provide the plasm out of which the sub- 

* Institutes of Medicine, \ 854, c. 



48 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

stantfal parts of the body are built up and maintained. 
The vital physiologists, on the other hand, invest the 
living tissues with the power of transmuting elements, 
and thus of elaborating, from any compound possessing 
the proximate principles of food, every needed element 
of nutrition. The chick, they say, elaborates bone from 
a pabulum in which exists no calcareous substance ; 
and the human economy can manufacture bone and 
brain as well from one alimentary substance as another. 
This is a very common error, and one which finds ex- 
cuse in the evils and absurdities of those who attempt 
to educe by chemical analysis and the balance the 
amount and kinds of food required for the sustenance 
of the body. Many of the Greek philosophers and 
poets thought it grossly unbecoming in man to busy 
himself with the process of digestion or the care of 
his body, which at best was only a poor tenement 
which he was better off without than with. Thus 
says Plato : " How can they addict themselves to the 
practice of virtue and the service of God, who are ever 
caring for their own miserable bodies ?" The question 
raised by Plato was thought unanswerable by the 
Stoics of his day and the hosts of Christians of a later 
day, who sustained their pretensions to piety by the zeal 
with which they mortified and debased their bodies. 
Moral ideas and ethicsQiave undergone a change since 
then ; and the pious devotee is no longer slow to accept 
a philosophy which makes the perfection of the body 
an indispensable concomitant of morality. 

Among all classes of writers on the subject, two 
conditions only are recognized as indispensable to a 
proper dietary: first, alimentary material; and second, 
digestibility. Dietitians may differ widely in respect to 






OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



49 



the dietetic character of man ; but once having agreed 
upon the kind of diet, whether flesh and mixed, or 
vegetables and fruits, the rest is arranged without dis- 
pute. The organism is likened to a piece of subtle 
mechanism, requiring nothing from external sources 
but materials for repair and lubrication, and sufficiency 
of fuel to furnish heat and maintain the movement of 
its complex enginery. The stomach is conceived to 
be a mill for breaking down and othewise converting 
crude materials into proper conditions for vital uses. 
If there are aliments unwholesome and incapable of 
subserving these purposes, it is owing to the existence 
in them of chemical reagents or principles incompa- 
tible with the normal constituents of the blood, rather 
than to any peculiar and inappropriate vital quality 
which they possess ! It will be observed that this 
philosophy of diet and nutrition is as appropriate to 
the animal as to man ; and if it be inadequate in its 
application to the latter, it is owing to the crude and 
incomprehensive views of chemists and physiologists, 
rather than to any unfair or undigested statement of it. 
This philosophy of diet and nutrition is too narrow 
in its application to either animals or man. If man 
be a natural being, formed from the dust of the earth, 
every element of his mentality, — every moral and 
intellectual principle and selfish and personal impulse 
of his nature, — is comprehended in the "protoplasm" 
from which his organization is derived. The elements 
and proximate principles of food must contain the 
sublime possibilities of human mentality, and it needs 
but the vital chemistry of the human body, and the 
transforming influences of the solar ray, to detect and 
transform them to its uses and give them visible ex- 

5* 



50 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



istence. This sounds like rank materialism ! and so it 
is ; but it is a logical deduction from our premise, for 
all that. Nor should the conclusion startle any one, 
for it is undeniable, unless indeed man is supernatural 
in his derivation, that matter and mind supplement 
each other in the organic world. Their relations are 
mutually dependent and interdependent; and no nar- 
row prejudice, or preconceived notions of materialism 
or immaterialism, can disturb that relation. The 
province of the philosopher is to observe nature, not 
to make her ; to study phenomena, not to transform 
and mould it ; to accept sequences with reverent faith 
and trust, and not attempt to circumvent them with 
trembling doubt and distrust. If God, the Eternal, 
resides in matter, materialism is, surely, respectable. 
If he breathes his life and immortality upon it, it 
certainly is not unequal to the evolution of the noblest 
powers of which man can boast.* 

That man derives his mental powers from nature 
is no new hypothesis, as has already been observed. 
Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," endeavored to 
establish that all men were born with equal mental 
capacity ; and that the subsequent mental variations 
arose altogether from differences of diet in after-life. \ 

Nutrition, then, comprehends, not only the supply 
of the visible and material fabric of the corporeal sys- 



* " And so I look on those sentiments which make the glory of the human 
being, love, humility, faith, as being also the intimacy of Divinity in the 
atoms ; and that, as soon as the man is right, assurances and previsions ema- 
nate from the interior of his body and his mind : as, when flowers reach 
their ripeness, incense exhales from them, and as a beautiful atmosphere is 
generated from the planet by the average emanations from all its rocks and 
soils." — Emerson's Conduct of Life, p. 202. 

■f" Winslow's Body and Mind, p. 114. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 5 r 

tern, the bone and sinew, muscle, and nerve, and brain, 
but, also, the psychical powers of thought and feeling. 
The quality of the diet influences the quality of the 
mind and disposition. The mental character is modi- 
fied, exalted, or depraved, according to the quality and 
quantity of the food one eats. The most important 
question in dietetics, therefore, is, What kind of food 
is most conducive to the development of the human 
excellences? rather than, What is most digestible? 
What kind of diet is most favorable to civilization, to 
the growth of honor, honesty, and virtue ? rather than, 
What is most prolific of bone, brain, and fat ? for it is 
undeniable that the latter elements are largely in excess 
of the former in modern society and civilization. 

The facts in support of our hypothesis are by no 
means few. The influence of quality of diet on one's 
disposition is strikingly illustrated in the animal king- 
dom. Contrast the mild herbivora with the flesh-eating 
carnivora; or, more strikingly still, compare the effect 
of different diets on the same species. If we wish a 
dog to be particularly ferocious, we give him raw flesh 
to eat. The common house-cat is rendered decidedly 
feline in disposition by an exclusive diet of flesh, or 
mild and tractable on a mixed diet. Wild animals are 
tamed and made docile, and many of them companion- 
able, by substituting a vegetable or mixed diet for 
their native one of flesh. A mild, soothing diet very 
soon subdues the ferocity of the tiger, and subjugates 
the ravenous propensities of the other members of that 
family. Moreover, the converse of this mental trans- 
formation, through the influence of food, is illustrated 
by feeding the herbivora on animal food. Mr. Graham 
quotes an observation of Bishop Heber, to the effect 



52 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



that, " in Norway, as well as in some parts of Hadra- 
maut, and the Coromandel coasts, the cattle are fed 
on the refuse of fish, which fattens them rapidly, but 
serves at the same time totally to change their nature, 
and render them unmanageably ferocious." Many 
other writers have made similar observations. Who 
knows but that a diet of milk and honey would trans- 
form the disposition of a lion, and enable that classic 
beast and a lamb to lie down together peacefully?* 

The effect of an exclusive flesh diet on man is 
similar to that which it produces on animals. " Fu- 
seli, the painter, was in the habit of eating raw meat 
for the purpose of engendering in his imagination hor- 
rible fancies. . . . With the view of making 
Achilles a hero, he was fed on the marrow of lions. "f 
Illustrations of the hypothesis may be found among the 
savage tribes on our borders, the natives of the islands 
of the South Seas, and all other exclusively flesh-eating 
peoples. Exclusive flesh-eaters are characterized, the 
world over, as mercilessly cruel, revengeful, and blood- 
thirsty. The fish-eating tribes are an exception to 
this statement ; but, then, fish is not flesh ! People 
who subsist exclusively on fish and the animal oils, 
while not distinguished for exemplary piety, are, 
nevertheless, less given to the indulgence of savage 
impulses than other flesh-eating tribes. In Green- 

* " If any dependence can be placed upon the statements which have 
come to us from reputable authority, even the tiger, if taken very young 
and reared upon a vegetable and milk diet, without ever being permitted to 
taste of flesh, becomes remarkably gentle, and manifests none of that fero- 
ciousness which is common to its species ; but if afterwards it be fed upon 
flesh, it soon becomes ferocious and cruel, and destructive." — Graham' s 
Science of Human Life, p. 486. 

| Winslow's Body and Mind, p. 114. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



53 



land, Nova Zembla, and other northern countries, 
where the natives live chiefly, and sometimes exclu- 
sively, on fish, seals, and other animal substances, 
corporeal sluggishness and mental stupidity are the 
predominating traits of character. Fish, therefore, is 
regarded as less stimulating than the flesh of warm- 
blooded animals. " Flesh-meat is more stimulating," 
says Sylvester Graham,* " more heating, than vegeta- 
ble food ; and its immediate effect on those who eat it 
is to increase the energy of the more exclusively selfish 
propensities, and the violence of the more turbulent, 
ferocious, and mischievous passions. Its permanent 
effects, from generation to generation, as a general 
fact, are to increase the relative proportion of the 
lower and back part of the brain, and to cause the 
animal to predominate over the intellectual and moral 
man." The author sustains his position with an array 
of facts from natural history and individual experience, 
which challenges the respectful consideration of those 
who have the moral well-being of man at heart.f 
On the other hand, a mild, unstimulating diet 

* Science of Human Life, § 1232. 

-j- It will be observed, that it is no part of my subject to discuss the natural 
dietetic character of man. While an exclusive vegetable diet lessens the force 
and activity of the propensities, it probably impairs the vigor of the intel- 
lect also, and the stamina of the physique in general. Mr. Graham, in his 
able work on the "Science of Human Life," brings forward a long array of 
facts respecting the mental effects of various articles of diet, which he claims 
demonstrate his vegetarian hypothesis. While we are not at liberty to dis- 
pute the facts he adduces, since they are drawn from natural history, and are 
accessible to all, we may reject his logic ; or, accepting both facts and logic, 
we may still dissent from his conclusion ; for it may be reasonably doubted 
if mankind are ready for the era contemplated as contingent on the uni- 
versal abandonment of flesh food, and other stimulating substances, when 
the nations shall dwell together in peace, and " the lion shall eat straw like 
the ox" ! 



54 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



weakens the force and activity of the passions, and 
promotes mildness, placability, and sweetness of tem- 
per. This fact finds confirmation* in the well-known - 
manners and customs of all vegetable-eating tribes of 
the human family. With no desire to claim for these 
numerous races transcendent virtues, or to concede to 
them a mentality, as a whole, superior to that of the 
omnivorous Caucasian, it is undeniable that their dis- 
positions exhibit characteristics just the opposite of 
those of the exclusively flesh-eating savages ; and that 
public morality among them is in striking contrast 
with that of the most civilized Christian community of 
which history has any knowledge. Take, for exam- 
ple, the numerous family of Hindoos. Their food 
consists chiefly of rice and fruits, to which is added a 
moiety of pulse, or dried fish. They are the mildest- 
mannered race on the face of the earth. Their regard 
for life, in every form, is too sacred to permit its 
sacrifice for any purpose whatever. They have an 
instinctive horror of fat, which is so deep and ineradi- 
cable that its bare mention is regarded as a gross 
insult. Their civilization and code of laws are the 
oldest in history; and if the people are mild and un- 
warlike, — more Christ-like than their western neigh- 
bors, — the better classes of them are not inferior to 
them in the power of subtle analysis or metaphysical 
research. The theology of Gotama is certainly more 
logical and of finer conception than that of Paul or 
Constantine. 

If the comparative excellence of food be tested by 
the power it has of influencing the moral and intel- 
lectual character of man, preference must obviously be 
given to the higher productions of the vegetable king- 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



55 



dom, — fruits and farinaceous food. In this class must 
also be included those precious concomitants of civili- 
zation, — tea and coffee. Physiologists and dietitians 
differ widely respecting the physiological properties 
of those peculiar substances, and also in the estimate 
of their value as food, and their specific effects upon 
the animal economy. The modern chemical and 
physiological estimate of food, however, is based, as it 
has been shown, on a very crude and imperfect — I 
should say, fallacious — judgment. They may, indeed, 
analyze it; point out, weigh, and measure the proxi- 
mate principles and chemical elements of an aliment 
submitted to them; but the subtle, deific essence and 
potential quality is beyond the detective agencies of 
acids and alkalies, or the crucible and balance. The 
chemical properties, for instance, of caffeine and theine 
are identical, and yet their specific effect upon the 
cerebral functions of most people is very dissimilar. 

Individual experience is the final test of the specific 
virtues or vices, or other properties, of any alimentary 
or other substance, interpreted by broad observation, 
objective as well as subjective. The verdict of this test 
is overwhelmingly favorable to the hypothesis that both 
tea and coffee support the nervous energies, and main- 
tain the intellectual processes. Literary people resort 
to them for aid in composition, and students and men 
of science imbibe them to clear the mind and sustain 
prolonged mental effort. The German chemist, Liebig, 
it is said, was in the habit of writing with a cup of 
coffee always before him. In circumstances of great 
anxiety, or unusual tension of the nervous system, 
prolonged watching, depressing emotion, privation of 
food, etc., tea and coffee — especially coffee — are most 



5 6 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

serviceable. "What an important effect is this!" ex- 
claims Dr. Chambers, in dilating upon the influence of 
these substances in restraining the waste of the system. 
"The tea and coffee drinker may have less to eat, and 
yet lose less weight — wear his body out less — than the 
water drinker. At a comparatively small expense, he 
may save some of the costly parts of his diet, — those 
nitrogenized solids that entail so much thought, labor, 
and anxiety to obtain."* 

Abd-el-Kader, the son of Mohammed, may well 
have gone into ecstasies over the discovery of coffee. 
The following encomium upon that beverage is said to 
have been written by him : 

"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great! 
thou bringest back those who wander from the paths 
of knowledge! Coffee is the beverage of the people 
of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for 
wisdom. When coffee is infused into the bowl, it ex- 
hales the odor of musk, and is of the color of ink. 
The truth is not known, except to the wise, who drink 
it from the foaming coffee-cup. God has deprived 
fools of coffee, who, with invincible obstinacy, con- 
demn it as injurious. 

" Coffee is our gold, and in the place of its libations 
we are in the enjoyment of the best and noblest 
society. Coffee is even as innocent a drink as the 
purest milk, from which it is only distinguished by its 
color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its prepa- 
ration, and the eood God will hover over thee and 
participate in the feast. Then the graces of the 
saloon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all 
furnish a picture of the abode of happiness. 

* Digestion and its Derangements, p. 249. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



57 



"Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents 
the delicious chalice. It will circulate fleetly through 
thy veins, and will not rankle there. If thou doubtest 
this, contemplate the youth and beauty of those who 
drink it. Grief cannot exist where it grows. Sorrow 
humbles itself in obedience before its powers. 

" Coffee is the drink of God's people. In it is health. 
Let this be the answer to those who doubt its qualities. 
In it we will drown our adversities, and in its fire con- 
sume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen the bliss- 
ful chalice will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink ! 
Thy color is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims 
it genuine! Drink with confidence, and regard not 
the prattle of fools, who condemn without founda- 
tion !"* 

Bayard Taylor says "the coffee of the East is the 
finest in the world;" and while he does not give its 
virtues the extravagant praise which he bestows upon 
tobacco, he remarks that he has " found it so grateful 
and refreshing a drink, that I can readily pardon the 
pleasant exaggeration of the Arabic poet, Abd-el- 
Kader Anazari Djezeri Hanbali, the son of Mohammed, 
who thus celebrates its virtues. "f 

It would seem in bad taste to follow this fine 
eulogium with any statement derogatory of coffee ; 
but with every possible deference to Abd-el-Kader's 
highly-wrought opinion, it must be admitted that 
there are temperaments and conditions with which 
the beverage disagrees ; moreover, its influence upon 

* Dr. C. A. Lee's " Notes to Pereira's Food and Diet." This eulogy on 
coffee was translated from the Arabic, and published in a German journal 
in 1834, according to Dr. Lee. 

t The Lands of the Saracen, p. 184. 

6 



58 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

the propensities generally is anything but sedative. 
In this respect its world-renowned congener and sup- 
plement, tea, is far more deserving of the high com- 
pliment of being the "drink of God's people." Pure, 
unadulterated tea is an intellectual tonic of unalloyed 
efficacy. 

2. Quantity in diet is also an influential agency in 
mental hygiene. Excessive alimentation produces 
plethora and a general increase of the powers of the 
animal functions. This fact is noticeable in all high 
and irregular feeders. Thackeray observed, " that 
sometimes, especially if he had been dining late, and 
did not feel in remarkably good humor next morning, 
he was inclined to make his characters villainously 
wicked ; but if he arose serene, with an unclouded 
brain, there was no end to the lovely actions he was 
willing to make his men and women perform."* The 
mental demoralization from this cause has been recog- 
nized from time immemorial. The leading moralists 
of the world have been mindful of the value of the 
fact ; and in order to fit their minds for the perception 
of the true and divine, have abstained from food, some- 
times for long periods. Fasting is necessary to rise 
to the dignity of a Buddhist in the great Hindoo sys- 
tem of religion. Christ fasted forty clays before fully 
entering upon his divine mission. The early Chris- 
tians resorted to the fast to chasten their minds and 
sweeten their hearts. Its influence is so potent upon 
the morals of mankind that it early became an estab- 
lished rite in the primitive Christian church ; and it is 
to be sincerely regretted that its observance is so 



Yesterdays with Authors. Fields. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



59 



lightly regarded in the Protestant churches. Milton 
has remarked the favorable influence of fasting and 
prayer upon the passions.* It is interesting to note, 
that while any considerable degree of fasting weakens 
the intellectual faculties, it quickens, if not carried too 
far, the moral sensibilities, and enlivens the nobler 
feelings and emotions. When carried to too great 
lengths, however, it perverts and deranges them all- 
Dr. Moleschott justly says • 

" There is another instinct by which the vigor of 
mind is vanquished in a more melancholy way. Hun- 
ger desolates head and heart. Though the craving 
for nutriment may be lessened to a surprising degree 
during mental exertion, there exists nothing more 
hostile to the cheerfulness of an active, thoughtful 
mind than the deprivation of liquid and solid food. 
To the starving man every passion becomes an intol- 
erable burden ; for this reason, hunger has effected 
more revolutions than the ambition of disaffected sub- 
jects. It is not, then, the dictate of cupidity or the 
claim of idleness which prompts the belief in a natural 
human right to work and food."f Dr. Moleschott, 
evidently, does not believe in the uniform beneficence 
of fasting. 

Moreover, the moral effect of fasting is also remark- 
able on animals. Bears are tamed by being deprived 
of their customary amount of food, and afterward con- 
fined to a mild diet. In India, wild elephants, when 
captured, are always tamed by depriving them of food 
until signs of great emaciation are discovered. " They 



* Prose Works, vol. iii. — Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 
f Huxley's and Youmans' Physiology and Hygiene, pp. 32-7. 



5o MENTAL INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 

are then fed with mild aliment, and soon acquire their 
usual flesh, but without the least return of their fero- 
city."* 

In many diseases, likewise, fasting is highly bene- 
ficial. I have known instances of the most inveterate 
maladies yielding to the influence of a prolonged fast. 
People with enlarged livers are always favorably in- 
fluenced by it ; and gouty people in general find it 
conducive to recovery. Dr. Rush recommends a low 
diet in some forms of madness.f In spinal irritation, 
I have known it to produce the most decided salutary 
modifications of the disease. 

It should be remembered, however,- that the hygienic 
value of fasting can be realized and appreciated only 
by those who habitually indulge in excess of eating 
and drinking. The under-fed suffer from evils and 
abuses of a totally different sort, to which fasting 
manifestly does not apply. Such is the influence of 
the corporeal functions upon the mind, that temper- 
ance in all things is demanded by the highest con- 
siderations of morality and hygiene. " If you would 
live long," said the distinguished Hufeland, " live 
moderately, and avoid a stimulating, heating diet, such 
as a great deal of flesh, eggs, chocolate, wine, and 
spices." 

* Rush on the Mind, p. 193. | Ibid - 



CHAPTER II. 

MENTAL INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL AGENTS — CONTINUED. 

However potent for mental weal or woe the influ- 
ence of food may be, there are numerous stimulating 
and narcotic substances in daily use, by many people, 
whose specific effects are directly perverting to the 
mental functions. These substances embrace the 
whole catalogue of stimulating, medicinal, and nar- 
cotic agents in general, alcohol, opium, and tobacco 
in particular. 

The warmest advocates of the habitual use of these 
agents do not claim that they possess any special 
nourishing quality. The most that can be said of 
their physiological uses is, that alcohol furnishes heat 
to the system in its chemical transformation, and that 
all these agents restrain the vital wear and tear. It 
remains to be seen if these uses are not fulfilled at a 
fearful waste of mental and moral life. Mr. Graham 
justly remarks, that "all pure stimulants, or those 
substances which stimulate without nourishing, in- 
crease the general irritability of the nervous system ; 
and all alcoholic, narcotic, and other deleterious stim- 
ulants always produce more or less of morbid irrita- 
bility in the system, according to the extent to which 
they are used. The activity caused by such means 
never healthfully increases the size of any organ or 

6* 



6 2 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

organs thus excited. But, as we have seen, it always 
increases the influence of certain cerebral organs over 
the others, — always tends to cause a predominance 
of the more exclusively selfish propensities over the 
intellectual and moral faculties."* 

I. Opium, of all the pure narcotics, is the most 
powerful in turning the mind out of its natural bent 
and perverting the normal procession of ideas. If it be 
" the sheet-anchor of the profession," its abuse has 
caused thousands, who learned the secret of its powers 
from the profession, to curse the very name of doctor, 
and to regret that human ingenuity ever conceived the 
necessity of the profession having a "sheet-anchor" at 
all. Its specific action is chiefly on the imagination. 
In small and repeated doses it increases the power and 
brilliancy of the fancy, and adds a charm to the sensi- 
bilities, which few, once under its fascinations, are able 
to resist. In this respect its powers are superior to 
any known drug, and are not even inferior to those of 
the arch-beguiler, referred to in the ancient fable, nor 
less potent to destroy. With the development of its 
chronic effects, however, this charm is broken. The 
faculty of ideation is gone ; ennui is induced ; many of 
the animal instincts are destroyed ; the subject is pos- 
sessed of strange fancies and forebodings, which give 
him no rest by day nor sleep at night. The will is 
broken, in serious cases, so that the individual is like a 
ship on a restless sea without a helmsman, completely 
at the mercy of restless impulses, which come and go 
like the surging waves without his bidding or control. 
Opium weakens the memory also, and in some in- 



* Science of Human Life, $ 1202. 






OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 63 

stances impairs the moral perceptions, the sense of 
honor and veracity.* 

Opium-smoking is largely practiced throughout 
China, although the laws of that country forbid the in- 
dulgence of the habit. Deaths from it there are not 
unfrequent, and are among the most horrible known 
to mankind. Experienced opium-smokers require 
about twenty pipefuls to produce its characteristic 
exhilarating effects. Bayard Taylor, when at Canton, 
a few years since, smoked six pipefuls at one sitting; 
and he found the experiment so fascinating upon his 
emotions that he did not dare to repeat it. " To my 
surprise," he writes, " I found the taste of the drug as 
delicious as the smell is disagreeable. It leaves a 
sweet, rich flavor like the finest liquorice upon the 
palate, and the gentle stimulus it communicates to the 
blood in the lungs fills the whole body with a sensa- 
tion of warmth and strength. The fumes of the opium 

* See Mr. Ludlow's paper on Opium-eating, in " Harper's Magazine," 
vol. xxxv. A writer in " The Opium Habit" says : " Opium weakens or utterly 
paralyzes the lower propensities, while it invigorates and elevates the supe- 
rior faculties, both intellectual and affectional." — p. 216. This is the pri- 
mary effect only. De Quincey was in the habit of augmenting his sensi- 
bility with opium on any special occasion of interest or enjoyment. " In 
those days," he says, " Grassini sang at the opera, and her voice was de- 
lightful to me beyond all that I had ever heard ; and when she appeared 
in some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as 
Andromache at the tomb of Hector, I question whether any Turk, of all 
that ever entered the paradise of opium-eaters, could have had the pleasure 
I had. And, over and above the music of the stage and orchestra, I had all 
around me, in the intervals of the performance, the music of the Italian lan- 
guage, talked by Italian women, for the gallery was usually crowded with 
Italians ; and I listened with a pleasure such as that with which Wild, the 
traveler, lay and listened, in Canada, to the sweet laughter of the Indian 
women ; for the less you understand a language, the more sensible you are 
to the melody or harshness of its sounds." — The Confessions of an Opium- 
eater. 



64 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

are no more irritating to the windpipe or bronchial 
tubes than common air, while they seem imbued with 
a richness of vitality far beyond our diluted oxygen. 
I had supposed that opium was smoked entirely for 
the purpose of mental exhilaration ; and that to the 
smokers, as to many who intoxicate themselves with 
ardent spirits, there was no sensual gratification in the 
mere taste of the article. The reverse is evidently the 
truth, and the practice, therefore, doubly dangerous. 
Its victim becomes hopelessly involved in its fasci- 
nating illusions, and an awful death, such as I had wit- 
nessed not long before, is sure, sooner or later, to over- 
take him who indulges in excess. I have a pretty 
strong confidence in my own powers of resistance, 
but do not desire to make the experiment a second 
time."* 

2. The effects of opium may be deeper and more 
subtle, but nothing in the whole range of toxicological 
agents so soon dehumanizes an individual as the ex- 
cessive use of alcoholic liquors. " Nothing, we think," 
says Dr. Carpenter, " can be more plain to the unpre- 
judiced observer than that the introduction of intoxi- 
cating agents into the circulating system really pre- 
vents the action of the mind, disordering the usual 
sequence of phenomena most -purely psychical, and 
occasioning new and strange results which are alto- 
gether at variance with those of its normal action. "f 
"A man who, sober, is a demi-god, is, when drunk, 
below even a beast."J In small doses it is a direct 



* India, China, and Japan, pp. 493-4. 
f Human Physiology, p. 537. 
% The Opium Habit, p. 216. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



65 



stimulant, increasing the force and volume of the 
pulse, the flow of ideas, and general mental activity. 

History furnishes many distinguished examples of 
mental dependence upon stimulants, alcoholics, and 
nervines. "^Eschylus, if we are to credit ^Elian, could 
never write until he was intoxicated, and according to 
Horace, this was the case with Ennius and Cratinus. 
Ben Jonson wrote best under the influence of canary; 
Sheridan prepared his marvelous speech on the Oude 
charge in a tavern, after swallowing tumbler after 
tumbler of brandy. The younger Pitt was often under 
the influence of port when he spoke, and Dundas, if 
we may believe one of Porson's epigrams on the sub- 
ject, could never speak till he was ' far gone.' Black- 
stone wrote his ' Commentaries ' with a bottle of port 
before him, and ' Vathek' Beckford was supported by 
constant draughts of the same. Shadwell stimulated 
himself by opium. The arch impostor, Psalmanazar, 
Coleridge, and De Quincey, used the same stimulant. 
Dryden and Fuseli ate raw meat to inspire vivid 
dreams. Voltaire was never without his coffee, and 
Byron wrote 'Don Juan' under the influence of gin."* 

The mental vivacity of alcohol, however, is of short 
duration, and the demand for repeated and increasing 
doses is soon tumultuously experienced. With the 
subsidence of its primary effects, there is exhaustion 
of the physical and mental powers. The subject is 
listless and nervous ; disinclined to physical or mental 
effort ; loses all spirit and ambition. 

The chronic moral derangements of alcohol are 
much modified by temperament, occupation, and cli- 

* The Golden Age. 



66 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

mate. Dr. Carpenter* says : " The irritable and ill- 
tempered become quarrelsome ; the weak and silly 
are boisterous with laughter and mirth, and profuse 
in offers of service; and the sad and hypochondriacal 
readily burst into tears, and dwell on mournful topics." 
To an individual who is wanting in moral balance, 
with dominant passions, or in whom the blood is thin, 
cachectic, and impoverished, alcohol is, even in small 
doses, most demoralizing. On such individuals the 
effect is decidedly inflammatory, exciting the propen- 
sities, and converting an otherwise inoffensive man or 
woman into a ferocious fiend. The moral perceptions 
are perverted by it. The slightest rebuff is magnified 
into the grossest of insults, and made the occasion and 
pretext for resentment and revenge. He labors under 
insane delusions. He fancies he is wronged and per- 
secuted by his dearest friends, — by his wife, or possibly 
his children ; and the kindest overtures from them are 
often interpreted as a disguise in order to obtain some 
profit or personal advantage over him. He is sus- 
picious and melancholic, or jealous and trusting, loving 
and hating, or generous and parsimonious, in alternat- 
ing and fleeting paroxysms. He is incapable of fidelity, 
or of choosing between good and evil, right and 
wrong, the false and true, or the magnanimous and 
deceitful. When the moral judgments are thus per- 
verted, an individual is surely reduced below the low 
level of the wild beasts, that hunt their prey and de- 
vour and appropriate, without mercy or remorse, what- 
ever serves to appease hunger or to gratify animal de- 
sire. Such beings have little moral responsibility ; and 

* Alcoholic Liquors, p. 31. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



6 7 



an individual who is thus debauched by alcohol, or 
other intoxicating and demoralizing agents, or habits, 
has little more sense of justice and right than the tiger 
or gorilla of the African jungle. 

These may be said, by the apologists for the use of 
intoxicating drinks, to be the moral effects of abuses of 
alcohol ; and such they are. It is, however, a matter 
of controversy where the proper use ends and the abuse 
begins. With all due deference to the distinguished 
savants who think otherwise, my opinion is that in 
health, alcohol, in any disguise, has no rights in the 
human blood entitled to anybody's respect ; that it is 
a toxical agent, with well-defined effects and morbific 
tendencies upon both body and mind, and cannot be in- 
troduced into the circulating system without seriously 
compromising the physical and moral well-being. 

The views of Dr. Carpenter and others concerning 
the general and specific effects of alcoholic liquors 
upon the animal economy, although opposed by 
many, are corroborated by those of a large major- 
ity of the medical profession. The State Board of 
Health of Massachusetts, of which Professor H. J. 
Bowditch is chairman, has recently (187 1-2) given the 
subject of intemperance in the various countries of 
the globe, and especially in Massachusetts, a most 
thorough investigation. Its report to the legislature 
of that State lies before me ; and it is replete with 
facts and figures, going to show the general demoral- 
ization consequent upon the habitual use of intoxicat- 
ing liquors, and is derived from sources which cannot 
be gainsaid, being the medical profession itself of 
that State, and the ministerial and consular service of 
the United States, throughout the civilized world. 



68 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

There is diversity of opinion expressed in response to 
the inquiries of the Board; but the general sentiment 
of a majority, as expressed by one of their number, is 
that " the effect of the use of intoxicating liquor is 
here, as elsewhere, injurious to health and destructive 
to life ; never useful as a beverage, and seldom, if 
ever, as a medicine. The users are not the only suf- 
ferers, but they leave to their children an inheritance 
of bodily and mental disease."* But the most im- 
portant generalization to be deduced from the report 
is that concerning the comparative prevalence of in- 
temperance among the different climates and peoples 
of the earth. The conclusion at which Professor 
Bowditch arrives, and which is a legitimate inference 
from the data collected, is thus stated by him : " In- 
temperance prevails the world over, but it is very 
rare at the equator. The tendency increases ac- 
cording to latitude, being more frequent and more 
brutal and disastrous in its effects on man and society 
as we approach the northern regions. "f The clear- 
headed Maudsley thus draws the parallel between 
mania and alcoholism : 



* Third Annual Report, State Board of Health, p. 77. 
f " The State Board of Health" of Massachusetts, in 1870, addressed 
the following inquiry to the members of the medical profession throughout 
that State: "What in your judgment has been the effect of the use of in- 
toxicating liquor as a beverage upon the health and lives of the people of 
your town, or in the region in which you practice?" In response to this 
inquiry one hundred and sixty-four [164] replies were received, of which 
the following is a summary : 

' Very destructive to life and health 48 

Injurious to a greater or less degree 49 

Public health not affected by use in their town . . . .16 
The people in their town very temperate . . . . .27 

Intoxicating drinks not used in their town ..... 5 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



6 9 



" Alcohol yields us, in its direct effects, the abstract 
and brief chronicle of the course of mania. At first 
there is an agreeable excitement, a lively flow of ideas, 
a revival of old ideas and feelings which seemed to 
have passed from the mind ; a general increase of 
mental activity, — a condition very like that which often 
precedes an attack of acute mania, when the patient 
is witty, lively, satirical, makes jokes or rhymes, and 
certainly exhibits a brilliancy of fancy which he is 
capable of at no other time. 

" Then there follows, in the next state of its increasing 
action, as there does in mania, the automatic excitation 
of ideas, which start up and follow one another with- 
out order, so that thought and speech are more or 
less incoherent, while passion is easily excited. After 
this stage has lasted for a time, — in some shorter, in 
others longer, — it passes into one of depression and 
maudlin melancholy, just as sometimes mania passes 
into melancholia, or convulsions into paralysis. And 
the last stage of all is one of stupor and dementia. 
If the abuse of alcohol be continued for years, it may 
cause forms of mental derangement, in which the 
muscular are curiously like the mental symptoms : 
delirium tremens in one, an acute, noisy, destructive 
mania in another, chronic alcoholism in a third, and a 
condition of mental weakness, with loss of memory 
and loss of energy, in a fourth."* 

The evil is bad upon foreigners in their town, but not upon natives . 4 
Useful in decline of life ........ 1 

Use promotes longevity ........ 1 

Indefinite replies 13" 

The Report altogether is a most able and instructive document, and de- 
serves to be widely read and reflected upon. 

* Body and Mind, pp. 91-2. 
7 



7° 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



In respect to the sphere of the specific influence of 
alcohol, and the mode of its physiological action, Dr. 
Carpenter observes : 

" The selective power of alcohol appears to lead it 
in the first instance to attack the cerebrum, the intel- 
lectual powers being affected before any disorder of 
sensation or motion manifests itself; and to this it 
seems to be limited in what has been here described 
as the first stage of intoxication. But with the more 
complex perversion of the intellectual powers, which 
characterizes the second stage, we have also a disturbed 
function of the sensory ganglia, upon which the cere- 
bral hemispheres are superposed ; this disturbance 
being indicated by the disorders of sensation, and also 
by the want of that control over the muscular move- 
ments which require sensation for their guidance. In 
the third stage the functions of the cerebrum and sen- 
sory ganglia appear to be completely suspended ; and 
those of the medulla oblongata and spinal cord now 
begin to be affected, as we see to be indicated by the 
difficulty of respiration, the strabismus, the dilated 
pupil, and the tetanic spasms. 

" As already stated, the admixture of alcohol with 
the blood has a tendency to give a venous character 
even to that of the arteries ; and when this tendency 
is augmented by imperfect respiration, the blood will 
become more and more venous, until its influence upon 
the medulla oblongata is so directly poisonous that its 
functions are completely suspended, the respiratory 
movements are brought to a stand, and death takes 
place by asphyxia, precisely as in narcotic poisoning 
by other substances."* 

;i; Alcoholic Liquors, p. 36. Sec Notes at end of chapter, page 92. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



71 



The fearful demoralization consequent upon the 
habitual use of alcoholic liquors is a fact of too gen- 
eral observation to need further elucidation. Statistics 
of disease and crime have long since placed the matter 
beyond the limits of reasonable skepticism. The fol- 
lowing table, compiled from the records of the Essex 
(Mass.) House of Correction, exhibits the percentage 
of common drunkards admitted for a series of years. 
The variations in the annual percentage of commit- 
ments are owing to the different degrees of vigilance 
exercised by the police and others in enforcing the 
prohibitory and license laws:* 



Years. 


Whole No. of 
Commitments. 


Common 
Drunkards. 


Per Cent. 


1861 


402 


107 


24 


1862 








395 


94 


24 


1863 








415 


121 


29 


1864 








207 


48 


23 


1865 








174 


27 


IS* 


1866 








225 


19 


8i 


1867 








177 


18 


10 


1868 








261 


39 


I4i 


1869 








214 


45 


21 


1870 








232 


29 


12* 



Returning to the influence of nervines and narcotics, 
we remark that they all exercise specific affinities for 
particular centres of the nervous system, and that their 
abuse leads directly to the development or assertion 
of those specific effects upon the nervous powers. 
For example : the nux vomica has an affinity for the 
medulla oblongata and the spinal cord, as observed in 
its well-known power of producing paralysis and palsy; 



* Third Annual Report State Board of Health of Massachusetts, p. 117. 



72 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



opium and alcohol for the brain and superior nervous 
centres, as proved by their influence over the ideas 
and feelings, and the power they possess of restraining 
and causing nervous disintegration. Belladonna, Indian 
hemp, hyoscyamus, prussic acid, stramonium, etc., have 
also affinities for particular portions of the sensorium, 
as shown in the peculiar character of their psychical 
effects, — paralysis, hallucinations, delusions, etc. To- 
bacco, on the other hand, seems to act more on the 
social powers, — the selfish propensities and sentiments, 
— according to the observation of many credible 
writers. The immoderate use of coffee influences the 
social instincts in a very similar manner, and exerts 
also a decidedly tonic effect upon the brain, and, as 
has already been observed, the faculty of ideation in 
particular. 

We are cognizant of the case of a little boy of a 
most irritable and vexatious disposition, who is always 
put in an agreeable, pleasant humor by a cup of tea 
or coffee. Such facts are certainly not alone peculiar 
to little children. We have frequently observed them 
in children of a larger growth. There can be no 
doubt, therefore, that nervines of such powers can 
be easily abused, nor that they arc abused. The brain 
and nervous system are frequently overtaxed through 
their influence, and the mind impelled to do an 
amount of work, and to undergo degrees of fatigue, 
which, without the aid of coffee or tea, it could not do, 
and would be all the better for the failure to do. 
Sooner or later morbid consequences, of a nervous 
character and serious nature, are likely to supervene. 

If it be true — and nothing in medicine is more 
firmly established — that certain medicines possess the 






OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



73 



property of modifying the normal feelings, appetites, 
and character of man, exalting, depressing, and actually 
of corrupting his morals, and the quality of his thoughts 
and sentiments, it is an interesting fact, and one having 
an intimate connection with mental hygiene. The cir- 
culation must be zealously guarded against their intru- 
sion to the sacred domain, if we would avoid the risk 
of developing impaired nerves, nervous idiosyncrasies, 
and mental derangements, — a most difficult thing to 
do, surely, when we reflect upon the wholesale and 
almost universal adulteration of almost every form of 
food and drink ; and that even the air we breathe is 
filled with infusoria, dust, noxious gases, malaria, etc., 
which prey upon the integrity of the organic functions. 

Unwholesome causes from these sources may not 
be wholly avoidable in the present state of public 
morals, ignorance of the laws of health, and the insane 
desire for riches ; but there are many other sources of 
blood-poisoning and moral perversion equally flagrant, 
which are by no means beyond our control. Among 
them we may mention patent medicines ; indiscrimi- 
nate or careless prescriptions of over-confident and 
too hopeful doctors ; popular mineral waters and cure- 
all springs ; innumerable varieties of beer-slops, 
gulped down by the wholesale ; cheap wines and 
liquors in general use ; tobacco-chewing and smoking, 
etc.* The evils arising from the last-named sources are 
of a nature too serious and wide-spread to be passed 
over with the bare mention of them. 

3. The influence of tobacco on the nervous system 

* Prof. John Fiske estimates the number who habitually use tobacco at 
800,000,000, an evident exaggeration. See his monograph in vindication 
of tobacco-smoking and wine-drinking. 

7* 



74 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



presents some features unlike those of other narcotics. 
Poisonous to the last degree, as any novice in the ex- 
ceedingly common ''accomplishment" of chewing or 
smoking can attest, it cannot be wholly innocent of 
the charge its enemies have made, of impairing the 
physical energies, or of perverting the nervous func- 
tions. To those whom temperament or peculiar idio- 
syncrasy renders inordinately susceptible to its prop- 
erties, tobacco does vitiate both body and mind ; on 
others of less nervous susceptibility its effect is not 
so clear and well defined. That such large numbers 
of human beings are able to take, day after day, and 
year after year, a drug of such confessed virulence, in 
such massive doses, is one of the most remarkable 
phenomena of organic life ! 

The active principle of tobacco is nicotine, an alka- 
loid exceedingly poisonous in its pure state, of which 
there is enough in a single cigar to kill several men. 
" According to the experiments of Vohl and Eulen- 
berg, the nicotine is decomposed, in the process of 
smoking, into pyridine, pieoline and other [less] poi- 
sonous alkaloids." Mr. Axon, in the " Quarterly 
Journal of Science," says that " the peculiar effects of 
tobacco are due to the action of the essential oil of 
tobacco in the case of chewing and snuffing, and to that, 
combined with the empyreumatic oil, in smoking."* 

From some systematic experiments of Dr. Edward 
Smith, which he communicated to the British Asso- 
ciation in 1864, tobacco, when smoked, acts primarily 
upon the heart, accelerating the pulse in some in- 



* See his able paper, " The Physiological Position of Tobacco," in the 
Quarterly Journal of Science, London, October 1872. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



7$ 



stances to a maximum of thirty-seven and a half pulsa- 
tions per minute— thus increasing the labor of that 
organ at least fifty per cent. " The effect upon the 
heart," says Mr. Axon, in the paper referred to, " is 
not caused by direct action upon that organ, but 
by paralyzing the minute vessels which form the bat- 
teries of the nervous system. Thus paralyzed, they 
can no longer offer effectual resistance, and the heart, 
freed from their control, increases the rapidity of its 
strokes, expanding the vessels with an apparent acces- 
sion, but real waste, of force." This effect of tobacco, 
in accelerating the pulse, is well known to every 
observant user of the weed. From several physicians, 
smokers of tobacco, to whom I have put the question, 
What effect does smoking have upon you, doctor ? the 
reply has invariably confirmed this view of its influence 
upon the pulse. An old client of mine has frequently 
been compelled to abandon the habit of smoking,which, 
aside from his sense of its luxury, he finds necessary 
to restrain the tendency to obesity, owing to its effect 
in accelerating the pulse. I have known his pulse to 
increase its rate from twenty-five to thirty per cent, 
by smoking a single cigar, which was followed by a 
restless, sleepless night, although he is an old user of 
tobacco, having smoked it for a quarter of a century. 
Another patient, a young man of steady habits, and 
several years addicted to the use of the weed, has been 
obliged to forego its use for a like reason. The smok- 
ing of one cigar is sufficient to increase the rate of his 
pulse from eighty-five pulsations per minute to one 
hundred and twenty. This effect continues several 
days, more or less, and is so uniform with him that I 
can always detect his indulgence of the cigar by an ex- 



76 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

amination of his pulse. In this patient, palpitation of 
the heart and shortness of breath are also frequent 
concomitants of tobacco-smoking. 

Death from paralysis of the heart is not an uncom- 
mon effect of tobacco. Druhen relates that a youth, 
aged fourteen, " having smoked fifteen cents' worth of 
tobacco, as a remedy for toothache, fell down senseless, 
and died the same evening."* Blatin, also, relates 
similar incidents from the effect of tobacco. But the 
acute effects of the drug he regards as trifling com- 
pared to "the gradual saturation of the system with 
nicotine." " The trembling," says Mr. Axon, " which 
is one of the usual symptoms of acute, is also a com- 
mon result of chronic, nicotism." He mentions the 
case of a distinguished Parisian physician, whose hands 
"shook so much that he could not write. Whenever 
he remained without tobacco for any length of time, 
these tremblings disappeared. "f 

Vertigo is another frequent concomitant of tobacco- 
using. Blatin mentions the case of a man who con- 
sulted him " respecting violent and numerous attacks 
of vertigo. When he felt one of them approaching 
he was obliged to lie down wherever he might be, in 
order to avoid falling. In the country, where he had 
plenty of exercise, they were less frequent than in the 
town, where his occupation was sedentary. Cessation 
from tobacco and a tonic regimen quickly restored 
him."J Numerous cases of similar nature and char- 
acter have been recorded among the observations of 
medical men. If they are not sufficiently tragical to 
deter the lovers of tobacco from the habits of smoking 



* Quarterly Journal of Science. f Ibid. % Ibid. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



77 



and chewing, they at least seem to prove the sphere of 
its physiological influence on the nervous system, and 
that of the heart particularly. Tobacco lowers the 
animal temperature ; and if it soothes and comforts 
the weary toiler in the study, or in the workshop, it 
does so through its specific, medicinal effect upon the 
sympathetic ganglia, rather than by any influence in 
augmenting the vital energies of the nervous system. 
" Tobacco," observes Mr. Axon,* " adds no potential 
strength to the human frame*. It may spur a weary 
brain or feeble arm to undue exertion for a short time, 
but its work is destructive, not constructive. It can- 
not add one molecule to the plasm out of which our 
bodies are daily built up. On the contrary, it exerts 
upon it a most deleterious influence. It does not sup- 
ply, but diminishes, vital force. "f And in concluding 
his interesting study of the habit, the writer pertinently 
affirms, that " it is in no case necessary or beneficial ; 
it is a social nuisance; it is devoid of aesthetic beauty; 
it is an unmanly leaning on a solace to care and labor 
neither sought nor needed by the weaker sex; it is an 
enormous and yearly-increasing improvidence. Above 
all, it is the foe to youthful development, the bane of 
youthful blood and brain. The subject may seem to 
some too trivial for serious attention ; but when we 
consider the extent of juvenile smoking, we see that 
the national life and stamina are seriously threatened 
by this ignoble habit." 

The effect of tobacco on the moral powers is nowise 
less pronounced than it is on those of the more purely 
physiological. J The author of " The Uses and Abuses 

* Quarterly Journal of Science. f Ibid. 

% Mr. Lewes, the clever author of " The Physiology of Common Life," 



yS MENTAL INFLUENCE 

of Tobacco," an Edinburgh professor of surgery, says, 
that " loss of memory takes place in an extraordinary 
degree in the smoker."* A colleague, whose opinion 
is influenced partly by the effect of the narcotic upon 
himself, believes that its excessive use impairs the 
memory. Another colleague who has studied the 
subject objectively, having no experience with the 
drug on himself, believes its long-continued use blunts 
in a degree the moral perceptions. And still another, 
whose opinion is entitled to respect, thinks its specific 
effects on the mind lie in the direction of the afifec- 
tional or social propensities. Dr. Lizars, before quoted, 
thinks it produces cowardice.f Mr. Parton's opinion 
on the subject is well known. He says :J "We must 

being disposed to find good in everything, makes tobacco no exception. He 
thinks a cigar a good digester, taken after dinner. But, he observes, it has 
" other influences, some beneficial, some injurious ; the amount of injury de- 
pends on the nature of the organism ; and therein each person must judge 
for himself. There is only one caution, which it is right to place before 
the reader. When tobacco is said not to be injurious, but beneficial, it 
must always be understood to mean tobacco in small quantities. Excess in 
tobacco is very injurious ; so also is excess in alcohol ; so also would be 
excess in mutton-chops. All excess is dangerous. All stimulants should 
be used sparingly. Yet the man who never thinks of exceeding his half 
a pint of wine or pint of beer daily makes no scruple of smoking a dozen 
cigars ! From my own experience, rendered vigilant as I am by a delicate 
digestion and an easily-disturbed organism, I can conscientiously say that 
two cigars daily, always taken after, and never before, the chief meals, have 
proved themselves to be decidedly beneficial in many directions ; but I should 
no more think of increasing that quantity than of increasing my daily 
quantity of coffee or beer. Other organisms could of course endure greater 
quantities. Each must determine the proper limit for himself ; and having 
determined it, abide by it." — Physiology of Common Life, vol. i. p. 192. 

* Dr. Lizars, p. 34. 

f " I have invariably found that patients addicted to tobacco-smoking 
were in sentiment cowardly, and deficient in manly fortitude to undergo any 
surgical operation, however trifling, proposed to relieve them from the suffer- 
ings of other complaints." — Ibid., p. 36. 

X Smoking and Drinking, by James Parton. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



79 



admit, too, I think, that smoking dulls a man's sense 
of the rights of others." As he himself is a reformed 
smoker, surely his opinion is not without weight. 
My .own study and observation of the chronic effects 
of tobacco have led me to believe that it impairs the 
moral perceptions, to a greater or less degree, and 
that it also perverts the social instincts. While it must 
be freely admitted that many good and excellent men 
smoke, — few such, I think, chew the "weed," — it is 
believed that they would even be better than they are, 
were it not for the morally sedative influence of the 
drug ; for it is undeniably true that tobacco in any 
form, not excepting the " fragrant Havana," is incom- 
patible with the existence of the highest and finest 
characters.* The noblest types of manhood and 
womanhood generally have no affinity for the weed; 
indeed, I have seldom known a man, and never a woman, 
greatly distinguished for the high quality of his or her 
moral perceptions, who was an habitual, or even an 
occasional, user of tobacco. 

The partisans of the smoking habit will find much 
in these views to dissent from. Mr. Bayard Taylor, 
whose observations on the subject are entitled to 
respect, having more than ordinary opportunities to 
test their soundness, says, that " its effect, when habit- 
ually used, is slightly narcotic and sedative, not too 
stimulating; or if so at times, it stimulates only the 
imagination and the social faculties. It lulls the com- 
bative and destructive propensities, and hence, so far 
as a material agent may operate, it exercises a human- 



* The great Napoleon said of smoking, that "it is a habit only fit to 
amuse sluggards."- — The Uses and Abuses of Tobacco, p. 86. 



8 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

izing and refining influence." The effect upon himself, 
he observes, is a " delicious sense of rest." " The pure 
physical sensation of rest," he says, " is one of strength 
also, and of perfect contentment. Many an impatient 
thought, many an angry word, have I avoided by a 
resort to the pipe." But would not a glass of cold 
water have had a similar effect? Mr. Taylor is evi- 
dently a natural smoker, and finds no limit to the 
height and depth of the peculiar fascinations of the 
habit. " I know of nothing," he continues, " more 
refreshing, after the fatigue of a long day's journey, 
than a well-prepared narghileh. That slightly fever- 
ish and excitable feeling which is the result of fatigue 
yields at once to its potency. The blood loses its heat 
and the pulse its rapidity; the muscles relax, the 
nerves are soothed into quiet, and the frame passes 
into a condition similar to sleep, except that the mind 
is awake and active. By the time one has finished his 
pipe, he is refreshed for the remainder of the day, and 
his nightly sleep is sound and healthy. Such are 
some of the physical effects of the pipe in Eastern 
lands. Morally and psychologically, it works still 
greater transformations ; but to describe them now, 
with the mouth-piece at my lips, would require an 
active self-consciousness which the habit does not 
allow."* Such, / should say, are some of the effects 
of tobacco on a highly-poetic temperament! 

Now, if tobacco, even in ever so small a degree, 
promotes moral degeneracy, augments the power and 
influence of the propensities in the character, to that 
extent, at least, it has an evil tendency. This is a 
logical sequence of the facts, which arc amply sup- 



* The Lands of the Saracen, p. 182. 




OF PHYSICAL AGEN\ 



ported by trustworthy observation. 
use of tobacco, Bayard Taylor to the contriS 
standing, certainly augments the importance ol 
the " I" in the character. It makes one more sensible 5 
of his own personal existence. His personal wants, 
desires, appetites, are increased in number and vigor. 
He is, therefore, less likely to forget himself in his 
zeal for the interests of others. He may be magnani- 
mous still, but he grows less generous, — except, per- 
haps, with his tobacco. The tobacco user may be 
in straitened circumstances, and find it exceedingly 
difficult to make his ends meet, but not to keep the 
tobacco-box well supplied! The baby may be in 
extremest want of a pair of shoes, but he never wants 
for cigars or tobacco. The doctor's bill may have 
laid in the drawer unpaid for months, or more, — fre- 
quently more, — but he does not forget to pay for the 
cigars, which he continues to puff with an ever-in- 
creasing satisfaction and delight. The wife and chil- 
dren may even want for the necessaries of life, — for food 
and drink, — but still the husband chews or smokes, — 
finding tobacco apparently the chief necessity of his 
life. These facts are founded on personal observation. 
Do they not sustain the allegation that tobacco pro- 
motes the growth of selfism in man ? 

Moreover, it must be conceded that the habitual use 
of tobacco is destructive, in a greater or less degree 
(secondary effect), of moral equanimity. The ma- 
jority of chewers and smokers are conscious of being- 
held in dominion by a power they cannot break. They 
are restless and impatient under restraint. The merest 
trifles vex and annoy. In general they are less kind 
and sympathetic, more easily crossed and dispossessed, 



g 2 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

— especially if temporarily deprived of their customary 
" solace." They are inclined to be less respectful and 
self-respecting ; less refined in manner, feeling, and ex- 
pression. The better class of those who are addicted 
to the use of tobacco may not descend to actual vul- 
garity, but, in general, they do not refrain from join- 
ing heartily in the laugh it excites when uttered by 
others. They are also less respectful and appreciative 
of the character of woman, and are more inclined, 
through the influence of the drug it is believed, to 
regard her from the lower and more purely selfish 
considerations. Tobacco may soothe and comfort 
that morbid restlessness and irritability which is the 
forerunner and positive indication of nervous derange- 
ment, if not of actual nervous disease; but it certainly 
is a blight upon that quality of genuine gallantry which 
is the special adornment and glory of manhood. 

These are obvious indications of a tendency to moral 
apathy and mental derangement, which may be justly 
attributed to tobacco. We know of no adequate com- 
pensation for these effects, except it be in restraining 
the appetite for substances, and the indulgence of 
habits, still more demoralizing; or of quieting morbid 
appetencies, hereditary or acquired, which, unchecked 
by some equally potent counteracting agent, would 
impel the individual into more disastrous ways. This 
explanation of the possible compensations of the habit 
is purely hypothetical ; but whether true or false, it 
needs no marvelous powers of comprehension to un- 
derstand that there can be no substantial, moral and 
intellectual health, so long as poisonous, and wholly 
inimical and vitiating, elements are necessary acces- 
sories of human blood and brain. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



83 



4. All through the East opium, tobacco, hasheesh, 
etc., have been largely used for centuries for the pur- 
pose of perverting the senses, — hasheesh particularly, 
to augment the power and luxury of the imagination. 
Bayard Taylor thinks he recognizes the agency of 
hasheesh in the production of such tales as the Arabian 
Nights, and in "the glow and luxury of all oriental 
poetry." The same author observes, also, that an 
infusion of the dried leaves of the cannabis indica 
" is a more fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of 
sugar and spices to which the Turk resorts, as the 
food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While its 
immediate effects seem to be more potent than those 
of opium, its habitual use, though attended with ulti- 
mate and permanent injury to the system, rarely results 
in such utter wreck of mind and body as that "to which 
the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn 
themselves."* 

Mr. Taylor's account of his own personal experi- 
ments with the hasheesh is as instructive as it is inter- 
esting. While at Damascus, during his oriental tour 
in 1852, that eminent tourist took, at a single dose, 
one teaspoonful of a strong infusion of the hasheesh, 
and after an interval of an hour took half as much 
more. He had not long to wait for characteristic 
symptoms: 

" I was seated alone," he writes, " nearly in the mid- 
dle of the room, talking with my friends, who were 
lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove at the 
farther end, when the same fine, nervous thrill of 
which I have spoken suddenly shot through me. 

* The Lands of the Saracen, pp. 133-4. 



84 - MENTAL INFLUENCE 

But this time it was accompanied with a burning sen- 
sation at the pit of the stomach ; and, instead of grow- 
ing upon me with the gradual pace of healthy slumber, 
and resolving me, as before, in the air, it came with 
the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the 
nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of 
limitation — of the confinement of our senses within 
the bounds of our own flesh and blood — instantly fell 
away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and 
tumbled into ruin ; and, without thinking what form I 
were, — losing sight even of all idea of form, — I felt that 
I existed throughout a vast extent of space. The blood 
pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues 
before it reached my extremities ; the air drawn into 
my lungs expanded into seas of limpid ether, and the 
arch of my skull was broader than the vault of heaven. 
Within the concave that held my brain were the 
fathomless deeps of blue ; clouds floated there, and 
the winds of heaven rolled them together, and there 
shone the orb of the sun. ... In the state of mental 
exaltation in which I was then plunged, all sensations, 
as they arose, suggested more or less coherent images. 
They presented themselves to me in a double form : 
one physical, and therefore to a certain extent tangi- 
ble; the other spiritual, and revealing itself in a suc- 
cession of splendid metaphors. The physical feeling 
of extended being was accompanied by the image of 
an exploding meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but 
continuing to shoot from its centre or nucleus — which 
corresponded to the burning spot at the pit of my 
stomach — incessant adumbrations of light, that finally 
lost themselves in the infinity of space. To my mind, 
even now, this image is still the best illustration of 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 85 

my sensations, as I recall them ; but I greatly doubt 
whether the reader will find it equally clear. 

" My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied ; 
the spirit (demon, shall I not rather say ?) of hasheesh 
had entire possession of me. I was cast upon the 
flood of his illusions, and drifted helplessly whither- 
soever they might choose to bear me. The thrills 
which ran through my nervous system became more 
rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations that 
steeped my whole being in unutterable rapture. It 
was accompanied by a sea of light, through which 
played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of 
light. While endeavoring, in broken expressions, to 
describe my feelings to my friends, who sat looking 
upon me incredulously, — not yet having been affected 
by the drug, — I suddenly found myself at the foot of 
the great Pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses 
of yellow limestone gleamed like gold in the sun, and 
the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for sup- 
port upon the blue arch of the sky. I wished to ascend 
it, and the wish alone placed me immediately upon its 
apex, lifted thousands of feet above the wheat-fields 
and palm-groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes down- 
ward, and, to my astonishment, saw that it was built, 
not of limestone, but of huge square plugs of caven- 
dish tobacco ! Words cannot paint the overwhelming 
sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced." 

After writhing now " in an agony of laughter," 
this scene melted away, to be followed with another 
of such gorgeousness that he despairs " of represent- 
ing its exceeding glory." 

" I was moving over the desert," he continues, " not 
upon the rocking dromedary, but seated in a bark 

8* 



86 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

made of mother-of-pearl, and studded with jewels of 
surpassing lustre. The sand was of grains of gold, 
and my keel slid through them without jar or sound. 
The air was radiant with excess of light, though no 
sun was to be seen. I inhaled the most delicious per- 
fumes ; and harmonies, such as Beethoven may have 
heard in dreams but never wrote, floated around me. 
The atmosphere itself was light, odor, music ; and 
each and all sublimated beyond anything the sober 
senses are capable of receiving. Before me — for a 
thousand leagues, as it seemed — stretched a vista of 
rainbows, whose colors gleamed with the splendor of 
gems, — arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, 
topaz, and ruby. By thousands and tens of thousands 
they flew past me, as my dazzling barge sped down 
the magnificent arcade ; yet the vista still stretched as 
far as ever before me. I reveled in a sensuous elysium, 
which was perfect, because no sense was left ungrati- 
fied. But, beyond all, my mind was filled with a bound 
less feeling of triumph. My journeywas that of a 
conqueror, — not of a conqueror who subdues his race, 
either by love or by will, for I forgot that man ex- 
isted, but one victorious over the grandest as well as 
the subtlest forces of nature. The spirits of light, 
color, odor, sound, and motion were my slaves ; 
and, having these, I was master of the universe. . . . 
Those finer senses, which occupy a middle ground 
between our animal and intellectual appetites, were 
suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had 
ever dreamed, and being thus at one and the same time 
gratified to the fullest extent of their preternatural 
capacity, the result was a single harmonious sensa- 
tion, to describe which human language has no epithet. 



OF PhYSICAL AGENTS. 



8 7 , 



Mahomet's paradise, with its palaces of ruby and 
emerald, its airs of musk and cassia, and its rivers 
colder than snow and sweeter than honey, would have 
been a poor and mean terminus for my Arcadia of 
rainbows." 

During these beautiful illusions, our author was 
quite conscious of his precise whereabouts, and of the 
fact that all these gorgeous fancies were the effects of 
hasheesh. " Yet, singular as it may seem," he re- 
marks, " neither conflicted with the other. My enjoy- 
ment of the visions was complete and absolute, undis- 
turbed by the faintest doubt of their reality; while, in 
some other chamber of my brain, reason sat coolly 
watching them, and heaping the liveliest ridicule on 
their fantastic features. One set of nerves was thrilled 
with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed 
with unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My 
highest ecstasies could not bear down and silence the 
weight of my ridicule, which, in its turn, was power- 
less to prevent me from running into other and more 
gorgeous absurdities. I was double, not ' swan and 
shadow,' but rather, sphinx-like, human and beast. 
A true sphinx, I was a riddle and a mystery to my- 
self." 

The full effect of the massive dose had not yet been 
reached. Thus far the illusions had been highly 
pleasing and enjoyable; but the more serious and suf- 
fering symptoms came on apace : 

" My perceptions now became more dim and con- 
fused. I felt that I was in the grasp of some giant 
force ; and, in the glimmering of my fading reason, 
grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under 
which my frame labored increased every moment. A 



38 MENTAL INFLUENCE 

fierce and furious heat radiated from my stomach 
throughout my system ; my mouth and throat were 
as dry and hard as if made of brass, and my tongue, 
it seemed to me, was a bar of rusty iron. I seized a 
pitcher of water, and drank long and deeply ; but I 
might as well have drunk so much air, for not only 
did it impart no moisture, but my palate and throat 
gave me no intelligence of having drank at all. I 
stood in the centre of the room, brandishing my arms 
convulsively, and heaving sighs that seemed to shatter 
my whole being. ' Will no one,' I said, in distress, 
1 cast out this devil that has possession of me ?' I no 
longer saw the room nor my friends. . . 

" By this time it was nearly midnight. I had passed 
through the paradise of hasheesh, and was plunged 
at once into the fiercest hell. . . . The excited blood 
rushed through my frame with a sound like the waves 
of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until 
I could no longer see ; it beat thickly in my ears, and 
so throbbed in my heart that I feared the ribs would 
give way under its blows. I tore open my vest, placed 
my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsa- 
tions ; but there were two hearts, one beating at the 
rate of a thousand beats a minute [a poet's license], 
and the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I 
thought, was filled to the brim with blood, and streams 
of blood were pouring from my ears. I felt them 
gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a 
maddened, desperate feeling, I fled from the room, 
and walked over the flat, terraced roof of the house. 
My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid, as I 
wrestled with the demon, and my face to become 
wild, lean, and haggard. . . . Involuntarily, I raised 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



8 9 



my hand to feel the leanness and sharpness of my face. 
Oh, horror ! the flesh had fallen from my bones, and 
it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders ! 
With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked 
down into the silent court-yard, then filled with the 
shadows thrown into it by the sinking moon. Shall I 
cast myself down headlong? was the question! pro- 
posed to myself; but though the horror of that skeleton 
delusion was greater than any fear of death, there was 
an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me away 
from the brink." 

These pitjable sufferings went on without abatement 
for several hours. And in addition to them was the 
consciousness of being possessed by a demon, against 
which he struggled with all the powers of his enfeebled 
will ; and as it " became gradually weaker," he ob- 
serves, " I felt that I should soon be powerless in his 
hands." By-and-by a painful state of " gray blank 
oblivion" came on, lasting some thirty hours ; after 
which a warm bath and a glass of acid sherbet put 
the reckless experimenter in the way of speedy con- 
valescence. For a long time our author remained 
broken in spirit, and deprived of sufficient energy to 
prosecute the objects of his journey. " Yet," he writes, 
" fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did 
not regret having made it. It revealed to me deeps 
of rapture and of suffering which my natural faculties 
never could have sounded. It has taught me the 
majesty of human reason and of human will, even in 
the weakest, and the awful peril of tampering with that 
which assails their integrity. I have here faithfully 
and fully written out my experience, on account of 
the lesson which it may convey to others. If I have 



90 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



unfortunately failed of my design, and have but 
awakened that restless curiosity which I have en- 
deavored to forestall, let me beg all who are thereby 
led to repeat the experiment upon themselves, that 
they be content to take the portion of hasheesh which 
is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me, 
swallow enough for six."* 

In finally concluding this chapter, we cannot for- 
bear to do justice to the intuitional and theological 
conceptions of our forefathers, and those of many of 
our contemporaries, who regarded, and do now regard, 
many forms of nervous derangement as the result of 
" demoniacal possession." When we reflect upon the 
multitude of morbid derangements that may be en- 
gendered in the mind by agents, the use of which a 
multitude of perverted instincts have rendered fash- 
ionable and imperative ; and the various mental dis- 
orders that may be and are artificially produced by 
narcotics, and other agents of similar morbific nature, 
which are so largely consumed in some form or other 
by man, the possibility of " demoniacal possession" 
seems highly plausible, and by no means incredible. 
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in 
many parts of Spain, France, and Italy, epidemics of 
nervous disorders frequently occurred in various pro- 
vinces, chiefly among the nuns, but the priests and 
exemplars were by no means exempt from the baleful 
influence. They were treated with Bibles and cruci- 
fixes, thumb-screws and fagots, on the presumption of 
their demoniacal origin. The treatment might have 
been improved upon, surely, but the cause and nature 

* The Lands of the Saracen, chap. x. 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 



91 



of the disorder were certainly not altogether misap- 
prehended. The victims of the "possession" occu- 
pied ill-ventilated rooms, in over-crowded, vitiated 
apartments. The institutions themselves were sur- 
rounded by an atmosphere of malaria. The inmates 
were closely secluded from sunlight and pure air ; 
used impure water and unwholesome food in deficient 
and capricious quantities. Their minds were continu- 
ally occupied with the super-sensuous ; their natures 
dwarfed and impoverished by being deprived of the 
vital stimulus of society and general social and in- 
dustrial recreation. Under such circumstances, the 
blood of the unfortunates must necessarily have be- 
come foul ; poisoned, intoxicated with various noxious 
and demoralizing agents, engendered and absorbed, 
which, ascending to the brain through the medium of 
the circulation, were absorbed into its substance, and 
became substantial constituents of the delicate nerve- 
cells and centres of thought and feeling. Thus were 
their functions perverted, or possessed, so to speak, and 
the individuals impelled to exhibit conduct the most 
strange and extraordinary, but at the same time, spon- 
taneous and wholly irresponsible. That they should 
have felt themselves "possessed" by the devil, or some 
other evil genii, is not at all strange, for they were, in 
fact, possessed not merely by one, but by many devils, 
far more vicious and vitiating than he of the horns and 
cloven hoofs ! 



9 2 



MENTAL INFLUENCE 



Notes on Alcohol. — Page 70. 

Pereira has classed alcohol among the alimentary 
principles, in view of Liebig's hypothesis that it is 
burnt in the lungs as fuel, and in that way ministers 
to the maintenance of the animal temperature. But 
he observes : " By itself it cannot form tissues, since it 
is deficient in some of their essential ingredients, 
namely, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus ; and there 
is no reason to suppose that it contributes, even in 
part, to the renovation of the tissues. . . . By its 
oxidation in the lungs it must evolve caloric, and 
thus, when used in moderation, it serves to support the 
temperature of the body." — Food and Diet, pp. 25-6. 

Liebig says that, " if we hold that increase of mass 
in the animal body, the development of its organs, and 
the supply of waste, — that all this is dependent on the 
blood, that is, on the ingredients of the blood, then 
only those substances can properly be called nutritious, 
or considered as food, which are capable of conversion 
into blood." — Organic Chemistry. 

Professor C. A. Lee remarks : " That animal heat is 
promoted to any extent by the combustion of alcohol 
in the lungs we think still more questionable, for ex- 
perience has proved that, other things being equal, 
a person will perish sooner when exposed to severe 
cold, if he uses alcoholic drinks, than if he entirely 
abstains from them. . . . There is, it is true, a popular 
delusion on this subject, for if 'coachmen and others 
take alcoholic drinks in cold weather to keep them 
warm,' they also take them in hot weather to keep 
them cool ; but in neither case can the custom be 
quoted as an argument in favor of such use, or of the 



OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 93 

justness of the views on which such views are founded." 
— Note 2 to Pereira's Food and Diet. 

Dr. Benjamin Rush says : " There cannot be a 
greater error than to suppose that spirituous liquors 
lessen the effects of cold on the body. On the con- 
trary, they always render the body more liable to be 
affected and injured by the cold." — Medical Inquiries. 

Sir John Ross, whose experience in the Arctic 
regions should give weight to his opinion, testifies : 
" When men under hard and steady labor are given 
their usual allowance or draught of grog, or a dram, 
they become languid and faint, losing their strength 
in reality, while they attribute that to the continuance 
of their fatiguing exertions." — From Food and Diet, p. 
269. 

Dr. W. B. Carpenter observes : " That the capacity 
of the healthy human system to sustain as much bod- 
ily or mental labor as it can be legitimately called 
upon to perform, and its power of resisting the ex- 
tremes of heat and cold, as well as other depressing 
agencies, are not augmented by the use of alcoholic 
liquors; but that, on the other hand, their use, under 
such circumstances, tends positively to the impairment 
of that capacity." — Alcoholic Liquors, p. 19. 

Lewes, on the other hand, says : " If it (alcohol) be 
not food, neither, then, is sugar food, nor starch, nor 
any of those manifold substances employed by man 
which do not enter into the composition of his tissues. 
That it produces poisonous effects when concentrated 
and taken in large doses is perfectly true ; but that 
similar effects follow when diluted, and taken in small 
doses, is manifestly false, as proved by daily experi- 
ence." — Physiology of Common Life, vol. i. p. 115. 

9 



g4 MENTAL INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL AGENTS. 

Moleschott, an eminent German physiologist, is 
quoted by Lewes in support of the latter's views : " He 
who has a little can give but little, if he wish to retain 
as much as one who is prodigal of his wealth. Alco- 
hol is the savings-bank of the tissues. He who eats 
little, and drinks alcohol in moderation, retains as 
much in his blood and tissues as he who eats more, 
and drinks no alcohol." — Lehre der Nahriingsmittcl, p. 
162. After all this assurance, respecting the conser- 
vating properties of alcohol, Mr. Lewes concludes that 
" the physiological action of alcohol is still unex- 
plained !" and most people will agree with him. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF CORPOREAL AND 
MENTAL EXERCISE. 

In a previous chapter we have shown how the very 
fountain of thought and feeling- may be perverted by 
means of various physical agents and influences oper- 
ating on the brain chiefly through the medium of the 
blood. Specific influences of that order act more 
vitally upon the brain and mental processes than 
agents or influences of a moral nature; since with the 
best of mental discipline, and the happiest moral sur- 
roundings, if the blood be disordered, the brain and 
mind may soon succumb to infirmity. 

It is no longer a debatable question among any 
class of thinkers, or people of any phase of religious 
or theological belief, that the brain comprehends a 
congeries of organs, each invested with or manifesting 
a special psychical function of its own. " Most phys- 
iologists," says Dr. Andrew Combe,* " are agreed that 
the different parts of the brain perform distinct func- 
tions, and that these functions are the highest and most 
important in the animal economy. . . Further, by 
nearly universal consent, the brain is held to be also 
the seat of the passions and moral feelings of our nature, 

* The Principles of Physiology, p. 2-12. 

95" 



9 6 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



as well as of consciousness and every other mental act." 
In the finely-endowed human being, these special 
organs and nerve-centres, comprising the heart and 
intellect of the theological system, are presumed to 
sustain definite proportions of strength and activity to 
each other. The character is thus enabled to present 
and maintain that high degree of order and consist- 
ency, in its relations to itself and to external nature, 
for which the true man, above every other creature, 
is so divinely distinguished. For a similar reason, 
serious disproportion in the development of these 
psychical powers of mind and heart results in bring- 
ing the individual into serious conflict and opposing 
relations with external nature, and the forms and 
usages which society establishes for the guidance and 
control of its members. Mental training, therefore, 
comprehends all the means, of whatever nature, by 
which the normal balance and activity of the mental 
faculties and propensities may be promoted and pre- 
served ; so that no organ or single group of organs, or 
psychical powers, shall gain, or possess undue influence 
or ascendency in the character. 

Commencing then with exercise, we have to observe 
that in accomplishing this end it is of no small mo- 
ment, in physical and mental training, to preserve the 
proper balance in the development of the bodily 
powers and the mental faculties.* In reacting from the 
former custom of overstraining the mental powers, the 

* " The brain, being an organized part, is subject, in so far as regards its 
exercise, to precisely the same laws as the other organs of the body. If it 
be doomed to inactivity, its health decays, and the mental operations and 
feelings, as a necessary sequence, become dull, feeble, and slow." — Combe s 
Principles of Physiology, etc., p. 21. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE gy 

tendency of the last half-century has been to go to the 
opposite extreme, — to develop the body at the expense 
of the mind. Tis a grave evil, and tends to put back 
the moral progress of the age. Body and mind be- 
ing an inseparable unit, limited in its constitutional 
element's and resources, nourished from a common 
source — the blood, it must needs follow that if the for- 
mer absorb more than its proper proportion, the latter 
is inevitably robbed of its rightful share. The inevU 
table corollary of excessive corporeal training is, there- 
fore, to render unduly weak and atrophic the organs 
of the cerebrum, whose strength and activity are, 
perhaps, the very sine qua non of moral and intellectual 
excellence. Long experience in the observation of 
human nature must convince any one that the will, 
however strong, is impotent to reform defects of char- 
acter which depend upon an organic or constitutional 
bias, whether congenital or acquired. Moreover, in 
mental disease the will itself is often subject to per- 
versions quite as radical and constitutional as those 
which afflict the other mental powers ; and however ap- 
parently free its decisions and determinations appear, 
they can easily be shown, in most instances, to be in 
strict accord with antecedent influences, and as far as 
possible from being the result of independent volition. 
The will is more often a wreck in the torrent of human 
impulses; adding no element of strength and cohesion 
to the moral character, but drifting helplessly in the 
current of phenomenal sequences. How impotent, then, 
must often be appeals to the will for moral changes and 
reforms ! Appeals against the rolling of the tempest's 
waves, or the flames of the devouring element, would 
be equally consistent and quite as effectual. There is 

9* 



9 8 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



no assurance, there can be none, that the character can 
be moulded into forms approximating ideal beauty and 
perfection by any methods that do not comprehend 
the harmonious balance of the faculties and powers, 
by the mutual exercise of each in its own sphere and 
upon its own object. 

The principle is amply illustrated in daily life. 
Among average people, great corporeal and mental 
powers are seldom — I may say never — observed in 
the same individual. If one is extraordinary, the 
other is below mediocrity. Strong muscular de- 
velopment and weak cerebra, or strong cerebra 
and weak muscles, are the rule, — the reverse is the 
exception. Dr. Winship, by long and tedious train- 
ing, succeeded in lifting three thousand pounds : the 
energy of his higher mental faculties is said to have 
become greatly impaired by the extraordinary accom- 
plishment; unless, indeed, he were a Hercules in vital 
resources, it could not be otherwise. The pugilist, 
who is distinguished for muscle, is never famous for 
brains. The celebrity in letters is notoriously deficient 
in muscular agility and development. The physical 
athlete, who surprises the world with wondrous feats 
of physical endurance in walking, rowing, boxing, 
wrestling, running, etc. ; the gymnast, or acrobat, 
who executes those wonders of physical achieve- 
ments in climbing, jumping, balancing, summersault- 
ing, and the various other monkeyisms to be seen in 
any first-class gymnastic establishment ; the sports- 
man, who rivals his fellows in cricket, base-ball, bil- 
liards, ten-pins, etc., all and singular, do so by the 
development of a physical prowess achieved at the 
expense of the superior powers. However much 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. qq 

such accomplishments may contribute to the pleasures 
of existence, — to promote symmetry of size, form, and 
movement, — they are, at the best, advantages confined 
to the animal plane, Man's noblest achievements 
would seem to lie in the direction of the moral and 
intellectual faculties, in evolutions which widen the 
distance between him and the purely animal. Surely, 
these do not consist in perfecting himself in those 
accomplishments wherein, try he never so hard, the 
monkey will always be his rival ; but, rather, in those 
acquirements of mind and heart which only a man can 
achieve. Those who have imbibed the foolish ambition 
to excel in physical development would do well to 
remember that a brilliant success means an ignomi- 
nious defeat in the attainment of the more purely 
human characteristics. This law of the mutual inter- 
change, correlation, of corporeal and mental forces, 
underlies the achievement of extraordinary success in 
any direction of individual effort, either of body or 
of mind. Its operation is certainly least desirable 
when the former is exalted at the expense of the latter. 
It by no means follows from this position that the 
less indulgence in manual exercise the better it is for 
the activity of the mind. On the contrary, the mind's 
highest vigor and usefulness depend on a due amount 
of physical exertion and recreation. It is to be re- 
gretted that no definite rule can be given to determine 
the amount of physical exercise that is, in some shape 
or other, requisite for the best mental condition. The 
amount widely differs with the age, temperament, sex, 
condition, and previous habits of different individuals. 
Some need more, others less; but all require a suffi- 
cient amount to secure harmony of organic develop- 



I0 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

ment, and to keep the physical and mental constitu- 
tion in good, healthy, vigorous condition. " Exercise," 
says Mr. Graham, " is the most important natural 
tonic of the body. It serves to impart vigor and 
activity to all the organs, and to secure the healthy 
integrity and energy of all the functions, and the 
symmetrical development and constitutional power 
of the whole system ; and gives strength and agility, 
elasticity and grace to the body, and energy and 
activity to the intellectual and moral faculties."* 

While it is no part of my object, then, to undervalue 
the importance of corporeal exercise and training as 
an indispensable adjuvant of human culture, and as 
one of the primary conditions of physical excellence,, 
without which no mind can be truly sound, it is 
nevertheless desirable, conformable to the laws of 
natural order, that muscular training should be con- 
fined to its true sphere in the civilization of the age. 
It must not be forgotten that the age of muscle is 
passing away, and in its place comes the higher one 
of nerve and brain. Steam and electricity on the one 
hand, and mechanical inventions on the other, are 
superseding the necessity for the stalwart frames and 
heavy sinews which were in such prime demand a 
few years since. Within my memory canals were 
dug with the shovel and pick-axe; railroads built by 
hand, with all the rough labor of excavating tunnels 
and filling up the roadways. The hard, manual work 
of the shop and farm was likewise done by arms 
made strong by ceaseless toil. Even the delicate 
work of the most skilled mechanic was, until recently, 



* Science of Human Life, sec. 1619. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE. I0I 

accomplished by fingers, which only long years of 
patient application and drilling could render efficient. 
It is not long since migration was essayed on foot, with 
bag and baggage borne on backs which, had they not 
been trained to hardihood, must have broken and 
failed under the burden. Within the memory of this 
generation the pack-horse and stage-coach, ruder 
forms of muscle, were indispensable accessories of 
civilization. And not much farther back in the pres- 
ent century, forests were felled single-handed; rude 
homes constructed in like manner; wildernesses tamed 
into gardens, and fortunes wrung from the rugged 
earth by physical prowess, that are now engineered by 
implements of mechanical ingenuity, without labor or 
other devices save that of the brain and its mechanical 
creations. When the brain and nervous energies, 
backed by creations of mechanical art and skill, as- 
sume the countless tasks so long performed by human 
hands, propelled by hardy muscles, under the impetus 
of hardier wills, we may be pardoned for questioning 
the wisdom of continuing to maintain that degree of 
muscular development, which obtained among our fore- 
fathers, as a necessity of a civilization which no longer 
exists. That civilization required brain to minister to 
muscle ; this civilization has reversed the order, and de- 
mands muscle to minister to brain in the development 
of the finer and nobler energies of a newer era.* 

* " The age of the quadruped is to go out, — the age of the brain and of 
the heart is to come in. The time will come when the evil forms we have 
known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants 
all the material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all 
enemies into power. The formidable mischief will only make the more 
useful slave. And \i one shall read the future of the race hinted in the or- 
ganic effort of nature to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding im- 



I0 2 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

Manual exercise, therefore, should be regarded as 
an adjuvant to moral culture and mental excellence, 
since it is no longer required in subjugating rude na- 
ture nor in doing the rough work of human industry. 
Corporeal exercise should minister to mental diges- 
tion and assimilation ; to the development of stronger 
nerves and minds ; to the growth of finer organiza- 
tions and higher mental attributes. If to this end the 
gymnast swings his clubs and climbs his ropes and 
poles ; the athlete balances his weights, walks, lifts, or 
runs; the oarsman plies his oars ; the jockey trains his 
horse ; the soldier drills or parades ; the mechanic 
works at his lathe or bench, or engages in cricket or 
base-ball ; the husbandman, or woman, cultivates the 
earth, sows and reaps, raises stock, or engages in other 
forms of productive industry, — it is all very well. Then 
will there be no fear that proficiency in any of these 
exercises and industries will be pushed to a degree in- 
consistent with the ascendency of the mental arts and 
accomplishments of an advancing civilization. 

It has already been intimated that mental sym- 
metry depended upon the symmetrical development 
of the mental faculties. Inordinate activity of one dis- 
poses to depression or defect in another : the result is 
to develop incongruities and angularities in the char- 
acter, quite fatal to order and consistency, or to a high 
degree of usefulness. " In order to maintain the highest 
degree of mental vigor," says Dr. Ray,* " it is neces- 

pulse to the better in the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is 
nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb 
the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses, and the 
hells into benefit." — Emcrsou oil- Culture. 
* Mental Hygiene, p 140. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. io ^ 

sary that every power which nature has bestowed shall 
have its rightful share of influence in the habitual ex- 
perience of the individual."* This is the true end and 
object of a sound education, and is as important to 
virtue as it is to health. If it were folly to suppose 
that the body could be in good physical condition 
with some of its organs or tissues diseased or defect- 
ive, it were equal folly to suppose that the brain, or 
the mind, could be sound with some of its organs or 
faculties in a defective, unsound, or undeveloped state. 
Moreover, the want of this mental balance, or sym- 
metry, leads directly to disease and crime. Undue 
activity of one mental function tends to increase and 
perpetuate its influence, and to deprive other organs, 
already enfeebled by disuse, of their due amount of 
stimulus. f • If it be the passions which have acquired 

* " A passionate man is not strong-minded ; nor do the ravings of insanity 
reveal mental vigor. A completely fashioned will is the true mark of a strong 
mind. As in the order of natural development there has been an ascent from 
the physical and chemical forms to the aim-working, vital force, and thence 
from the lowest vitality to the highest manifestation thereof, so in the course 
of mental development there is a progress through sensation, passion, 
emotion, reason, to the highest plane of mental force, — a well-fashioned 
will. The rightly developed mind, like the healthy cell, recognizes its rela- 
tions to others ; self-feeling gives way to, or expands into, moral feeling, and 
in the will all the phases of consciousness are co-ordinated into calm, just, 
definite action." — Maudsley's paper on The Theory of Vitality, Appendix 
to his Body and Mind, p. 154. 

f " ' A perfect mind in a perfect body,' says Mr. Lecky, "was the ideal of 
the [Greek] philosopher, and the latter was considered almost a condition 
of the former. Harmonious sustained manhood, without disproportion, or 
anomaly, or eccentricity — that godlike type in which the same divine energy 
seems to thrill with equal force through every faculty of mind and body , 
the majesty of a single power never deranging the balance or impairing the 
symmetry of the whole, — was probably more keenly appreciated and more 
frequently exhibited in ancient Greece than in any succeeding civilization." 
— History of Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. p. 351. 



104 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



this unnatural ascendency, the consequence is most de- 
plorable upon the moral character. A condition is 
developed which needs only exciting causes to throw 
the individual into uncontrollable paroxysms of insane 
anger, or render him a prey to a variety of morbid 
impulses which he has neither the wish nor the power 
to control. 

Mr. Emerson, in one of his trenchant essays bearing 
upon this subject, forcibly observes :* "There is an in- 
timate interdependence of intellect and morals. Given 
the equality of two intellects, which will form the 
most reliable judgments, the good or the bad hearted ? 
' The heart has its arguments, with which the under- 
standing is not acquainted.' For the heart is at once 
aware of the state of health'or disease, which is the con- 
trolling state, — that is, of sanity or of insanity, prior, of 
course, to all question of the ingenuity of arguments, 
the amount of facts, or the elegance of rhetoric. So 
intimate is this alliance of mind and heart, that talent 
uniformly sinks with character. The bias of errors of 
principle carries away men into perilous courses, as 
soon as their will does not control their passion or 
talent. Hence the extraordinary blunders, and final 
wrong head, into which men, -spoiled by ambition, 
usually fall. Hence the remedy for all blunders, the 
cure of blindness, the cure of crime, is love. ' As 
much love, so much mind/ said the Latin proverb. 
The superiority that has no superior ; the redeemer 
and instructor of souls, as it is their primal essence, is 
love." 

It will be observed that I am stating an hypothesis 

* The Conduct of Life, pp. 189-90. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. 



I05 



founded on physiological and mental science. In 
actual life such cases are by no means hypothetical. 
The late monstrosity in human form, the unhappy 
Ruloff, who lately expiated his crime on the gallows, 
is an illustration in point. Dissection of his brain 
demonstrated inordinate strength and activity of both 
the passions and the intellect ; while conscience and 
the moral brain, in general, were singularly defective. 
Occurrences of the kind, though happily not of degree, 
are too numerous to mention. They maybe observed 
everywhere, and in every degree or state of develop- 
ment, from the slightly eccentric individual to him who 
steals your purse, embezzles the public funds, outrages 
private decency, or assassinates a fancied enemy. No 
healthy or normally developed individual could be 
tempted by the most orthodox devil in Christendom 
to commit either of these acts, or any of the various 
other nameless misdemeanors which disgrace modern 
society. 

It must be conceded, then, that no individual can 
justly be supposed to be mentally sound, and in the 
normal enjoyment of his mental being, who has one 
faculty undeveloped, one talent unimproved. The 
grand difference between a great man and a small one 
— between a Bacon and most of his pupils ; or a Cullen 
and a Brown ; or a Greeley and an ordinary man — is in 
the power and activity of his superior faculties. Every 
man and every woman may be presumed to be the 
equal of every other man and woman, in so far as the 
mere possession of the various mental elements can con- 
tribute to that equality. In that respect the Creator has 
been absolutely just to every human being. Man di- 
verges from nature and equality into genius or medi- 

10 



I0 6 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

ocrity just at this point, according as his superior 
powers develop or remain in a rudimentary or an 
unbalanced state. 

Moreover, while atony of the superior faculties dis- 
poses to disease and crime by supplying the requisite 
mental conditions, viz. the preponderance of the ani- 
mal over the human powers, activity in them promotes 
health and the general well-being. The hardest 
thinkers are healthier, happier, and longer lived than 
any other class. According to statistical records, 
philosophers and statesmen head the list of long-lived 
people. Von Humboldt, the greatest naturalist of the 
nineteenth century, though living in defiance of the 
recognized laws of health, retained the fullness of his 
intellect until the age of ninety. Buffon, the most cele- 
brated French naturalist of the last century, died at 
eighty-one. Lord Bacon, the philosopher, took cold in 
one of his experiments and died at sixty-five. Caven- 
dish, the brilliant chemist and physicist of the last cen- 
tury, although a bachelor, — a state not especially con- 
ducive to longevity, — reached the ripe age of seventy- 
nine. Lord Brougham died in harness at above the age 
of ninety. Our own beloved Irving, though not a 
physicist, yet distinguished in letters, died in 1 859, at the 
advanced age of seventy-six, retaining his intellect un- 
impaired. The immortal Franklin lived and labored 
until the age of eighty-four ; " his faculties and affec- 
tions were unimpaired to the last." Hahnemann, the 
founder of the system of therapeutics known as homoe- 
opathy, although a physician, was even more a philoso- 
pher, had a child born to him at the ripe age of eighty, 
and did not attain to the full zenith of professional pros- 
perity until after that age. He died at eighty-eight, 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. 



I07 



in the vigor of his faculties, having experimented upon 
himself in testing the pathogenetic properties of drugs 
to a greater extent than any previous physicist. Sir 
Isaac Newton, than whom no man was a closer or a 
more conscientious student, published a new edition of 
his greatest work, the " Principia," in his eighty-fourth 
year. He died soon after, 1727, — his faculties un- 
dimmed to the last. Dr. Johnson, the celebrated 
savant and litterateur, died at seventy-five. " The 
illustrious Lord Mansfield died at the advanced 
age of eighty-nine, in full and unclouded vigor of 
intellect."* 

In this category, and as an American parallel of 
Lord Mansfield, may be included the Hon. Horace 
Binney, of Philadelphia, who for more than half a cen- 
tury was very generally regarded as standing at the head 
of the American bar. The amount of professional labor 
which Mr. Binney performed during that long period 
must have been well-nigh herculean ; of him the 
late Chief Justice Marshall declared, that " no man ex- 
celled him in knowledge of the great science of juris- 
prudence ;" an opinion strengthened and confirmed by 
Daniel Webster, who added that " not only was he 
unexcelled, but unequalled in all the qualities that 
constitute a great lawyer and model man." This ven- 
erable citizen is still living, at the age of ninety-five, 
with an intellect unclouded and unimpaired, and fur- 
nishes an illustrious example of the endurance the 
mind is capable of when well-balanced and sustained 
by good health and generous impulses, 

French savants are not behind the English in ex- 

* Winslow's Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Mind, p. 552. 



IQ 8 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

amples of remarkable longevity. Cardinal de Fleury 
was prime minister of France from the age of seventy 
to ninety. The beautiful and accomplished Madame 
Recamier retained many of her charms at an advanced 
age, — dying at seventy-two. Fontenelle was secretary 
of the French Academy of Science for many years, re- 
signing on account of ill health at the age of eighty- 
three. He died in 1757. in his one hundredth year. 
Voltaire, the greatest litterateur of a brilliant literary 
age, the eighteenth century, after passing through va- 
rious vicissitudes of social fortune, died at Paris in his 
eighty-fifth year, with an intellect unclouded till the 
last. " I die," said he, " worshiping God, loving my 
friends, not hating my enemies, but detesting supersti- 
tion."* Richelieu reached the age of ninety-three, 
and died "full of mental vigor." M. Leroy at the age 
of one hundred " composed a remarkably beautiful 
and spirited poem." While all philosophers and 
statesmen do not reach the age of eighty years, it is 
undeniably true that a majority of such as have greatly 
distinguished themselves in science and literature 
have reached advanced age, proving that the very 
highest mental discipline is not inimical to good health 
and long life. 

Among men distinguished for special gifts, as music, 
sculpture, painting, poetry, etc., the record of longevity 
points unmistakably to the same conclusion. It is a 
common error to suppose that the poetic temperament 
is unfavorable to mental soundness and old age. The 
instances, unhappily too numerous, on which this error 
is based, have been among the class who began life 

■:;:■ New American Encyclopaedia, art. Voltaire. 






CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. IO n 

with unsound conditions, and who wrote, for the most 
part, under the inspiration of a fitful and disordered 
imagination. Byron's hereditary infirmities are well 
known ; and if he died young it was surely through 
faults not wholly his own, for his father died of dissipa- 
tion, and his mother, a woman of ungovernable temper, 
was early destroyed by a fit of anger. Burns died at the 
age of thirty-eight, of intemperance ; and Cowley was 
swept off the stage of life in a drunken fit, at forty-nine. 
Poets, less brilliant perhaps, but with equally strong 
imaginations, when not stricken with disease, have 
ripened into old age. The venerable Bryant still in- 
dulges his muse, and prosecutes, also, editorial labors, 
at the extraordinary age of seventy-eight. The cele- 
brated author of*' Faust" retained remarkable powers of 
intellect at eighty, — and died at eighty-three. Chau- 
cer reached the age of seventy-two. Gosse is said to 
have composed a Te Deum at the age of seventy-eight. 
Cherubini was brilliant at eighty ; and Corneille exhib- 
ited no decay of intellectual powers at seventy. The 
American portrait painters, Charles, and his son Rem- 
brandt, Peale, died at advanced ages, — the father at 
eighty-six, the son at eighty-two. And Thomas Sully, 
a celebrity of the same profession, only recently de- 
ceased, at the remarkable age of eighty-nine, prose- 
cuted his calling until almost the very last day of his 
life, and would doubtless have continued to do so 
several years longer except for the misfortune of an 
accident, whereby his labors were abruptly terminated. 
Titian, " the greatest painter of the Venetian school," 
continued his labors until the age of ninety and up- 
wards, and finally died of the plague at ninety-nine. 
Benjamin West painted his last important picture, 



IIO THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

"Death on the Pale Horse," when he was seventy- 
nine. He died in London in 1820, with a mind un- 
clouded, at the advanced age of eighty-two. Handel, 
the celebrated musical composer, died at seventy-five. 
Those great German geniuses and musical composers, 
Mendelssohn and Beethoven, inherited infirm constitu- 
tions and died of disease at middle age. Haydn, one 
of the greatest musical composers of the last century, 
retained his genius till the age of seventy-seven. 
Mozart, his predecessor, succumbed to disease at 
sixty-seven. Our own venerable musical composer 
and writer, the late Dr. Lowell Mason, reached his 
eightieth year. 

Distinguished sculptors are equally remarkable for 
their years. The American Powers, of "Greek Slave'' 
celebrity, recently deceased, was chiseling away at the 
age of sixty-seven. Thorwaldsen, the eminent and be- 
loved Danish sculptor, died suddenly of heart-disease at 
the age of seventy-four ; leaving much unfinished work 
in his studio, among the rest a statue of Luther. His 
no less distinguished and admired Italian contemporary, 
Canova, also succumbed to disease at the age of sixty- 
seven. He evidently hoped to live many years 
longer, judging by the amount of unfinished work 
he left behind. These examples of longevity among 
students of art, philosophy, and literature tend strongly 
to sustain the position assumed. 

According to statistics lately published in this coun- 
try, the average duration of the lives of philosophers 
and physicians is sixty-eight years. The clergy rank 
next in longevity ; lawyers next ; while the class of 
people whose occupation is usually regarded in the 
highest degree health-promoting, the farmer, barely 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. Iri 

reaches an average of fifty years !* Causes of an ob- 
viously depressing nature, as improper diet and over- 
work in extremes of heat and cold, undoubtedly con- 
tribute to this result. But the general neglect of 
intellectual and moral culture, and the consequent 
disproportionate development of the muscular system 
among that class, are the chief exciting causes of their 
premature decline. "A partial cultivation of the mental 
faculties," says Dr. Ray, " is incompatible, not only with 
the highest order of thought, but with the highest de- 
gree of health and efficiency. The results of profes- 
sional experience fairly warrant the statement, that in 
persons of a high grade of intellectual endowment and 
cultivation, other things being equal, the force of moral 
shocks is more easily broken, tedious and harassing 
exercises of particular powers more safely borne, than 
in those of an opposite description; and disease, when 
it comes, is more readily controlled and cured. "f The 
general health of the poor and unlettered is certainly 
below that of the average of the more cultivated and 
affluent classes; and if old age is attained by them, 
they are more likely to lose their faculties by brain- 
softening, and end their days in imbecility. 

"It is a fallacy," says WinslowJ "to suppose that 
the duration of life is shortened by literary pursuits. 
The great philosophers of antiquity — men whose minds 
were ardently engaged in the acquirement of knowl- 
edge and the pursuit of truth — were long-lived. . . . 
Blumenbach, the distinguished physician and natural- 
ist, states that for the long period (exceeding half a 



* I write from memory, but these figures are believed to be correct, 
f Mental Hygiene, p. 149. \ Body and Mind, pp. 61-2. 



H2 THE RECIPROCAL INELUENCES OE 

century) he was associated with the most celebrated 
European universities, he did not witness a solitary 
example of any youth falling a victim to his ardor in 
the pursuit of intellectual distinction ; and Eichhorn, 
one of the most voluminous writers of the day, the 
eminent philologist and historian, is said boldly to 
affirm that no one ever died of hard study. The idea 
is preposterous. ' A man may fret himself to death 
over his books, or anywhere else ; but literary applica- 
tion would tend to diffuse cheerfulness, and rather pro- 
long than shorten the life of an infirm man.' " This 
is, certainly, putting the case strongly, and must be re- 
garded as an extreme statement of a sound principle. 
Dr. Caldwell, an American physician of some re- 
pute in the beginning of the present century, and 
author of an able treatise on " Physical Education," 
observes,* that " the influence of strong and well- 
cultivated moral and intellectual organs on the gen- 
eral health of the system is soothing and salutary ; 
and feeds and strengthens it, instead of ruffling and 
wearing it out. Compared to the influence of the 
organs of passion, it is as mild and wholesome nour- 
ishment contrasted with alcohol ; or like the genial 
warmth of the spring and autumn with the burning 
heat of summer. Life and health and comfort may 
last long under the former, while all is parched and 
withered by the latter. Finally, a well-cultivated and 
well-balanced brain do much to produce a sound 
mind and a sound body." And Dr. Madden, in his " In- 
firmities of Genius," makes the following statement : 
"That the vigor of a great intellect is favorable to 

* Winslow's, Body and Mind, p. 61. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. 



"3 



longevity in every literary pursuit, where the imagi- 
nation is seldom called upon." 

Buckle, in vol. ii., art. 773, of his Posthumous 
Works, gives the ages of many historical characters 
in support of the wholesome influence of literary 
pursuits upon longevity. Kant and Stow, both hard 
workers and thinkers, lived to be eighty. Strype 
died at ninety-four. Hobbes reached the age of 
ninety-one. "Lardner, the learned author of the 
' Credibility/ etc., was eighty-four. Lanfranc, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, died in 1089, aged eighty-three. 
Berenger died in 1088, almost ninety. The learned 
Allatius died in 1669, aged eighty-three. Montfaucon 
died in 1741, aged eighty-seven. The celebrated 
Jacques Sismond, Tun des plus savants hommes dont 
s'honore la France,' died in 165 1, aged ninety-two. 
. . . The celebrated traveler, Carstens Niebuhr, died 
in 18 1 5, aged eighty-two. . . . Cumberland, the 
learned bishop of Peterborough, lived to be eighty- 
six. . . . Reid, the metaphysician, was eighty- 
six. . . . Simson, the celebrated restorer of the 
Greek geometry, was turned eighty. Watt died in 
1 8 19, aged eighty-three. Lord Karnes died in 1792, 
aged eighty-six. Blair was eighty-two." 

And Huet, one of the most distinguished scholars 
of the seventeenth century, regarded the belief in the 
unhealthy tendency of study, when accompanied by 
an orderly, abstinent, and chaste life, as a great error. 
His words are so wise and appropriate to the subject 
that I give them as uttered by him : " C'est une 
grande erreur de croire que l'etude soit contraire a la 

* See references quoted in Buckle. 



U4 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



sante. On voit autant vieillir de gens de lettres 
que de toute autre profession. L'histoire en fournit 
une infinite d'exemples. En effet, cette vie reglee, 
uniforme, paisible, n'entretient-elle pas la bonne con- 
stitution et n'eloigne-t-elle pas toutes les causes qui 
la peuvent alterer? pourvu que la chaleur naturelle 
soit d'ailleurs excitee par un exercice modere et ne soit 
pas etouffee sous une quantite d'aliments dispropor- 
tionee aux besoins de la vie sedentaire."* Huet, himself 
a most indefatigable worker, proved the soundness of 
his views on this subject in his own career, living to 
the ripe age of ninety-one. 

The following table, giving the average age of a 
stated number of men distinguished in the various 
professions, is from Dr. Madden's work before quoted : 







w 

< 






< 


Professions. 





< 


Professions. 


a 


< 






< 

75 
70 
69 




S 


H 
> 

< 

66 
64 

62* 


Natural philosophers . 
Moral philosophers . 
Sculptors and painters 
Authors on law and 


1494 
1417 
1412 


Philologists .... 
Musical composers 
Novelists and miscel- 
laneous authors . . 


1323 
I284 

1257 


jurisprudence . . 
Medical authors . . 


1399 
1^68 


68 
68 


Dramatists .... 
Authors on natural 


I244 


62 


Authors on revealed 






religion .... 


1245 


62 


religion .... 


i35o 


67 


Poets 


I444 


57 



The lives of women distinguished in literature tend 
also to corroborate the wholesome influence of men- 



tal exercise. 



The following table, 



o-ivinsr the aees of 



many eminent literary women, is taken from Wins- 
low's " Body and Mind" : 



Huetiana, No. 3, Amsterdam, 1723. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE. 



115 



Names. 



Lady Russell . . . 

Mrs. Rowe . . . 
Lady M. W. Montagu 

Mrs. Centlivre . . 

Lady Hervey . . . 
Lady Suffolk . 
Mrs. Sheridan 

" Cowley . . . 

" Macauley . . 

" Montague . . 



Ages. 



37 
63 
73 
44 
70 

79 

47 
66 

53 
81 



Names. 



Mrs Chapone 

" Lennox . 

" Trimmer 

" Hamilton 

" Radcliffe 

" Barbauld 

" Delany . 

" Inchbald 

" Piozzi 
Miss Hannah More 



Ages. 



The following table is condensed from that given 
in M. Lombard's work, " De lTnfluence des Profes- 
sions sur la Duree de la Vie," and presents the mean 
age, at death, of a stated number of men, distributed 
through the professions and trades named, respectively : 



tn 












X 

% 
w 
P 




a 

< 


X 

w 

p 

h 

O 

6 
S5 




M 
O 
< 


Professions. 



< 


Professions. 


< 


6 




« 
w 
> 

< 




> 
< 


7i 


Magistrates .... 


69.1 


176 


Carpenters .... 


27S 


Persons with a fixed 




179 


Engravers .... 


S4-7 




income 


6s.8 


63 


Blacksmiths .... 


S4-S 


52 


Protestant clergymen. 


63.8 


4i 


Printers 


54-3 


80 


Retired officers . . . 


63.6 


376 


Shoemakers .... 


54-2 


476 


Merchants .... 


62.0 


41 


Surgeons, apothecaries 


54-° 


6 7 


Clerks in public offices 


61.9 


77 


Butchers 


53-° 


152 


Goldsmiths .... 


61.6 


171 


Day-laborers . . . 


52.4 


47 


Founders 


SQ-4 


6S 


Painters and varnishers 


44-3 


1073 


Watchmakers . . . 


55-3 


62 


Locksmiths .... 


47.2 


124 


Masons 


SS-2 


J 43 


Joiners and cabinet- 




43 


Tanners 


55-2 




makers 


49-7 



The above table of M. Lombard's, who was physi- 
cian of the Civil and Military Hospital at Geneva, was 
compiled probably from data furnished by that coun- 
try. All these tables and facts of longevity are of 



n6 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



exceeding interest, and would be heightened if the 
mental habits of those distinguished men and women 
could accompany the record of their age. Their biog- 
raphies, however, are within easy reach of all. 

The following table exhibits in striking contrast 
the superior advantages possessed by the educated 
and affluent classes over the uneducated and laboring 
poor in the struggle for existence, in the borough of 
Preston, England. I find it in the able report of the 
Rev. J. Clay to the Board of Commissioners having 
in hand the investigation into the public health of 
Great Britain, 1843. Due allowance should, of course, 
be made with this, as with the other tables, for the in- 
ferior sanitary conditions of the poorer classes.* It is 
full of instruction to those who take an interest in 
human life and welfare. 

Table Showing the Progressive Decrease in the Sum of Vitality 
of Three Classes of Inhabitants, Preston, England. 





1. Gentry. 


2. Trades- 


3. Opera- 






men. 


tives. 


Born 


100 


100 


100 


Remaining at the end of ist year 


90.8 


79.6 


68.2 


" ' " 2d " 


87.6 


73-5 


57-5 


5 th " 


82.4 


61.8 


44.6 


10th " 


81. 1 


56.6 


38.8 


" " 20th " 


76-3 


51-6 


31-5 


30th " 


72.3 


45-9 


25.2 


" " 40th " 


63.4 


37-5 


20.4 


50th " 


56. 


28.1 


15-6 


60th " 


45-i 


20.5 


11. 2 


" " 70th " 


25-4 


13-3 


6.1 


" " 80th " 


8. 


4-5 


2.1 


" " 90th " 


i-3 


.8 


.2 


" " 100th " 






•03 




Terminates 


Terminates 


Terminates 




in the 92d 


in the 96th 


in the 103d 




year. 


year. 


year. 



* Health of Towns, First Annual Report, 18.J4, vol. i. p. I74» 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE. 



117 



While, therefore, mental culture is indispensable to 
good health and long life, and the very highest culti- 
vation of the mind not incompatible with great lon- 
gevity, let it not be concluded that intense application 
to mental pursuits has no limits beyond which it is 
dangerous to go. Different constitutions possess dif- 
ferent degrees of mental endurance ; and the execution 
of tasks which would be pastime to one would .break 
the mind of another. Rousseau observes that excessive 
mental application " makes men tender, weakens their 
constitutions, and, when once the body has lost its 
powers, those of the soul are not easily preserved."* 
The effect of an undue and too close application to 
intellectual pursuits is not unfrequently attended with 
the gravest consequences ; and I am indisposed, there- 
fore, to give a cordial indorsement to Prof. Eich- 
horn's extreme views of the entire absence of hazard 
of intense mental exercise, as applicable, at least, to 
Americans. They do not accord with good reason, 
and are inconsistent with the laws of organic life. 
When it is remembered that the intellectual faculties 
are not the only ones in the mental economy which 
demand attention ; that there is a moral and an affec- 
tional group, which cannot be neglected with im- 
punity ; and that, after these, there is a lower animal 
organization upon which the mind is dependent for 
its healthy activity, and without the due exercise and 
training of which disease and infirmity must needs 
result, the danger of exclusive intellectual and moral 
culture, to certain temperaments especially, will be 
apparent to all. " If the human being were made up 



Winslow's Body and Mind, p. 155. 
II 



U8 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

of nothing but a brain and nervous system," says Dr. 
Combe,* " it would be very well to content ourselves 
with sedentary pursuits, and to confine ourselves en- 
tirely to the mind." The Germans, French, and Eng- 
glish have, undoubtedly, hardier constitutions than 
their descendants in our excitable climate ; but exam- 
ples are not wanting there nor here, when the mind 
has given way under inordinate strain. Sir Humphry 
Davy's useful career was prematurely ended from this 
cause ; so also were Canning's, Castlereagh's, and 
others. Sir Walter Scott's case is as notable in this 
respect as it is painful ; and the distinguished Newton 
became sleepless, and so far lost his memory at one 
time that he could not remember the contents of the 
" Principia," his most famous work. Rest, however, 
seemed to restore him, but Scott's mind "went down 
in darkness." The celebrated Hunter temporarily 
lost his memory from the same cause. The careers 
of a great many statesmen and scholars have been 
suddenly cut short by intense application to mental 
labor. Chief Justice Chase's mind gave way from 
the effect of prolonged and arduous labor ; and Mr. 
Colfax swooned in the Senate chamber from the 
same cause, and was compelled to retire for awhile 
from active public life. One of our rarest scholars, 
Theodore Parker, suffered the gravest symptoms from 
immoderate mental application, — that of frequent and 
uncontrollable sadness; consumption ultimately devel- 
oped, and swept him to an early grave, but for which 
even worse consequences. were likely to have befallen 
him. Men like Humboldt, Brougham, Mansfield, 

* The Principles of Physiology, p. 235. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE. lY g 

Binney, Blumenbach, Greeley, Franklin, and Seward ; 
and women like Hannah More, Martineau, Lennox, and 
Stowe, are unusual productions of any country. They 
seem to be independent of the ordinary laws of men- 
tality ; and it is manifestly unsafe to adopt their men- 
tal habits as rules for smaller and more feebly endowed 
men and women to follow. 

The scholarly man is usually associated with sallow 
complexions, spectacles, moroseness, pointed noses, 
thin legs, and wasted frames, and unsocial, diffident, 
and awkward manners. In this picture of the student 
Burton must have had in his mind the studious monk 
and ascetic of the Middle Ages : " Hard students are 
commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhs, rheums, 
cachexias, bradyspepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick, 
crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, 
and all such diseases as come by over-much sitting : 
they are most part lean, dry, ill-colored . . . and all 
through immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. 
If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon 
great Tostatus and Thomas Aquinas's works ; and 
tell me whether those men took pains."* 

The propriety of this association, however just as 
regards the physical characteristics of religious ascetics 
and theological promulgators of ancient times, is not 
sustained by the lives and characters of modern 
students and thinkers. Diversity of studies, generous 
nutrition, and society obviate in the modern the 
physical disabilities which formed so large a part of the 
experience of the earlier student, so forcibly described 
by Burton. The tendency of modern physiological in- 

* Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sec. 2. 



120 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



quiry is to cast grave doubt upon the value of ideas 
and doctrines bred under circumstances thus morbid 
and ill-conditioned. The characteristics of children 
are mostly the offspring of their parents : disordered 
ideas and judgments, the legitimate products of dis- 
eased bodies and brains. 

In this country nothing is more common than for 
young graduates from college, some of whom at- 
tain high honors, and others who have no business 
to be in college, to be infirm in health, broken in spirit, 
and totally unfit to assume the burdens and responsi- 
bilities of life. Many of them develop madness and 
die by their own hands, or are sent to insane asylums 
for safe-keeping. Others go on with life's work for a 
season, but are finally compelled to retire from the 
pulpit, bar, or other posts of labor, on account of 
bodily disease, vertigo, failure of memory, melan- 
choly, or other symptoms of cerebral disorder. In- 
firmity of some form or other early shows itself, as 
the consequence, it is said, of undue mental applica- 
tion! This is quite true in some cases ; but in justice 
to the reputation of intellectual pursuits, it must be 
admitted that the difficulties have generally arisen in 
flagrant disregard of the most obvious laws of mental 
and physical hygiene. This is quite evident to any one 
who is at all familiar with the habits of an average 
college student through an ordinary college course. 
The effects of insufficient exercise, improper food, 
over- or under-feeding, too little sleep, undue expo- 
sure to cold and damp, and a score or more of impure 
and improper habits, which are as inimical to good 
health and long life as they are to common sense and 
sound morality, are most apparent. The instances, 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. 



121 



however, of broken constitutions, in consequence of 
intense and prolonged application of the mind, are 
not wholly unknown. The effects are so serious, the 
consequences so lasting and far-reaching, that they 
merit just recognition and a careful guarding against. 
The most prominent indications of an over-burdened 
brain may be briefly stated. The incipient signs of 
undue exercise of the mind are, mental disquiet ; im- 
perfect or unrefreshing sleep, or complete insomnia; 
vertigo; nervous hyperaesthesia ; sad, disconsolate 
humor; disinclination for society. The subject often 
experiences a sense of physical exhaustion, unap- 
peased by repose or food, but which, at first, may be 
overcome with copious libations of tea or coffee, and 
later requires the stronger stimulus of opium or alco- 
hol. The relief from this source, however, is only 
temporary : the needed remedy is rest and relaxation, 
— absolute and unconditional. 

If the cause be persisted in, the signs soon become 
more pronounced. Vertigo is more constant and 
severe, now and then accompanied by slight symp- 
toms of syncope. If such obvious warnings be duly 
heeded, and remissions of mental toil acquiesced in, 
the subject may yet avert a serious calamity, for 
the brain is the most hardy of all the bodily organs, 
and will bear the most abuse ; if otherwise, absolute 
failure of the physical and mental powers — loss of 
memory, delusions, morbid impulses, errors of judg- 
ment, palsy; or actual suicide, apoplexia, paralysis, 
destructive mania, or imbecility — supervenes, from 
which complete — in most instances not even partial — 
recovery is to be expected. In physiology, the con- 
sequence of seriously overtasking the mental faculties 



I2 2 1IIE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

is analogous to the sin against the Holy Ghost, and 
is quite as unpardonable. 

The remedy for these evils has been already indi- 
cated. It will be found less in medicines, prayers, and 
penances, physical genuflexions, etc., than in attention 
to the laws of the whole economy. By a just atten- 
tion and respect to these, the student, statesman, or 
writer, the devotee of science, or the cultivator of art, 
will accomplish all he now does, and more, in most 
instances, without seriously compromising the in- 
tegrity of his mind. Just rules to govern the amount of 
brain-labor, applicable to the various conditions and 
temperaments of people, are impossible. Immunity 
from danger from this source can be approximated 
only in a more uniform exercise and development of 
the mental faculties. There must be less concentra- 
tion on one faculty or group of faculties,— more diffu- 
sion of the blood and nervous energy to parts or 
powers in disuse, and too often permitted to run to 
waste. So far as the exercise of the mind is in- 
volved, this law, if duly complied with, would tend, 
obviously, to prevent most of the evils attributed 
to brain-exhaustion, and to secure harmony and hap- 
piness where now is vexation and disappointment. 
This indication however cannot be fulfilled without 
greater diversity of mental employment, — mental ex- 
ercise. In respect to more definite suggestions for 
mental labor, the views of Dr. Ray, so far as they go, 
seem to me eminently wise and judicious : 

" How much a man may use his brain without 
endangering its health is a question that admits of no 
definite answer, because it depends very much on the 
original stamina of the individual, and the intensity 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE. 12 \ 

of his application. While it is easy, oftentimes, to see 
that this or that person is overtasking his powers, it 
is impossible to lay down any general rule on the 
subject that would not require too much of some and 
too little of others. In youth and early manhood, 
especially if the constitution is deficient in vigor, 
there would be danger from a degree of application 
that might be safe enough at a later period, when 
the brain has become hardened by age and regular 
labor. So, too, habits of active physical exercise will 
enable a man to accomplish an amount of intellectual 
labor that would utterly break down one of sedentary 
habits. After making all due allowance for these dif- 
ferences, I think we may say that few can exceed six 
hours a day of close mental application without seri- 
ously endangering the health of the brain ; while, for 
most persons, a not unreasonable degree of prudence 
would prescribe a much shorter period."* 

The brain, however, is frequently the most enduring 
organ in the economy, and can sustain an activity the 
most concentrated and prolonged. The following are 
a few notable examples : 

" Many literary masterpieces were written at a sit- 
ting. The first draft of ' The Castle of Otranto ' was 
nearly finished thus, the author only desisting because 
he was physically unable to hold his pen. ' Vathek ' 
was completed in three days and two nights of inces- 
sant' effort. Dryden finished ' Alexander's Feast ' in a 
day and a night, and it is said that Mrs. Browning 
wrote ' Lady Geraldine's Courtship ' in twelve hours. 
Shelley, Byron, and Theodore Hook wrote with amaz- 

* Mental Hygiene, pp. iio-ii. 



124 



THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 



ing rapidity ; so did Scott, who seldom or never cor- 
rected. Dryden tells us that his thoughts came press- 
ing in so fast that he had scarcely time for selection. 
He composed the * Parallel between Poetry and Paint- 
ing' in twelve mornings, and the 'Medal' in a fev^ 
days. It was the same with Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
who wrote his admirable ' Life of Savage ' in a little 
more than thirty-six hours, and his oriental romance 
of ' Rasselas ' for the purpose of obtaining funds to 
defray the expense of his mother's funeral."* 

Great men are usually — great geniuses always — 
distinguished by the power of their minds and the 
tenacity of their memory. Theodore Parker, Sir 
Walter Scott, and Charles Sumner are conspicuous 
examples of men with remarkable memory. 

" Dr. Johnson, it is said, never forgot anything he 
had seen, heard, or read. Burke, Clarendon, Gibbon, 
Locke, Tillotson, were all distinguished for strength 
of memory. When alluding to this subject, Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton observes : ' For intellectual power of 
the highest order, none were distinguished above 
Grotius and Pascal, and Grotius and Pascal forgot 
nothing they had ever read or thought. Leibnitz and 
Euler were not less celebrated for their intelligence 
than for their memory, and both could repeat the 
whole of the " ^Eneid." Donellus knew the " Corpus 
Juris " by heart, and yet he was one of the profound- 
est and most original speculators in jurisprudence. 
Ben Jonson tells us that he could repeat all he had 
ever written and whole books that he had read. 
Themistocles could call by their names the twenty 

* The Golden Age, May io, 1873. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCLSE. 



125 



thousand citizens of Athens. Cyrus is reported to 
have known the name of every soldier in his army. 
Hortensius (after Cicero the greatest orator of Rome), 
after sitting a day at a public sale, correctly enumerated 
from memory all the things sold, their prices, and the 
names of their purchasers. Niebuhr, the historian, 
was no less distinguished for his memory than for his 
acuteness. In his youth he was employed in one of 
the public offices of Denmark ; part of a book of 
accounts having been destroyed, he restored it by an 
effort of memory.' "* 

Disregard of the hygienic relations of the physical 
economy is, also, an element of embarrassment to 
mental application. There are physical conditions 
which make right thinking difficult or absolutely im- 
possible ; and if the mind be forced to its work under 
the tyranny of such restraint, a minimum of exertion 
proves too often an excess. If the stomach be weak, 
as is more commonly the case in this country, an in- 
digestible dinner furnishes a most effective check on 
the operations of the intellect. Neglect of the ordi- 
nary aids to digestion and assimilation ; proper oxy- 
genation of the blood ; wholesome discipline of the 
passions; the society of our fellows; and the higher 
stimulus of living with the hourly approval of con- 
science, are all important factors in estimating the 
powers and capabilities of the mind. Want of atten- 
tion to these fundamental conditions renders minds 
fitful in application that would otherwise be always 
ready for any task however difficult. Most autHors 
are compelled to wait for the writing mood, in order 



ibid. 



l 2 6 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF 

to compose to their satisfaction. This was notoriously 
the case with Hawthorne; and even the genial Thack- 
eray complained of the same difficulty. The cause is 
to be found in just this disregard of conditions, the 
observance of which is indispensable to the free and 
unrestrained activity of the mind. A mind prepared for 
its work will accomplish in an hour what it otherwise 
would require three or four hours to do, or be incapa- 
ble of doing at all ; and what is only a mental pastime 
under propitious circumstances becomes positively 
irksome and injurious under others. If the proper 
mental conditions be supplied, and the diet be such 
as to afford the requisite nourishment, in suitable form, 
to the brain, mental work could probably be safely 
prolonged to as many hours a day as muscular work, 
under equally favoring muscular conditions. On this 
subject Dr. John Todd observes : " No fixed time 
can be marked out for all. This must vary with the 
constitution of each individual. A mind that moves 
slowly requires and will bear more time for study. 
In Germany, the students spend many more hours 
than we can in this country. I have tried to account 
for the fact that, with their preposterous habits of 
eating and indolence, they can study so many hours 
a day, and that to extreme old age. Doubtless na- 
tional habits do something; individual habits do some-' 
thing; but these will not account for it. Many of 
them will study sixteen hours a day; few of them less 
than thirteen. We should all die under it. The dif- 
ference may be attributed to two causes, for the cor- 
rectness of which I cannot vouch, viz., their mental 
operations are slower than ours, and their climate is 
less variable and better adapted to a student's life. 



CORPOREAL AND MENTAL EXERCISE. 



127 



Few, in our country, ever studied half so much as 

they have, if hours are to be the criterion 

Be this as it may, it is certain that we must do what 
we do, by way of daily study, in fewer hours ; and, in 
my view, it is vastly better to chain the attention down 
closely and study hard a few hours, than to try to 
keep it moderately fixed and engaged for a greater 
length of time. Our most successful students seldom 
study over six hours in a day. In this I include 
nothing of recitations, of desultory, half-formed im- 
pulses of the mind; but I mean real, hard, devoted 
study. He who would study six hours a day with all 
the attention of which the soul is capable need not fear 
but he will yet stand high in his calling. But mark 
me — it must be study as hard as the soul will bear! 
The attention must all be absorbed ; the thoughts 
must all be brought in, and turned upon the object of 
study, as you would turn the collected rays of the sun 
into the focus of the glass when you would get fire 
from those rays. Do not call miscellaneous reading 
or anything which you do by way of relief or amuse- 
ment, study : it is not study. Be sure to get as much 
of your study in the morning as possible. The mind 
is then in good order. Aurora musis arnica, necnon 
vespera."* 

* Student's Manual, pp. 108-9. Rev. John Todd, D.D. 



f 



CHAPTER IV. 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

" To say that a man's character and conduct are determined, in a great 
degree, by the original constitution of his brain and nervous system, is to 
utter a truth that can hardly be called new. Few, however, are disposed 
to make any proper account of those central qualities which imply a devi- 
ation, of some kind or other, from the line of healthy action. It is not in 
accordance with the philosophy of our times to see in them an explanation 
of those strange and curious traits which are utterly inexplicable on the 
principles that govern the conduct of ordinary men. How, then, could 
they expect the popular approbation, who find in them a clew to some of 
the mysteries of human delinquency? But the teachings of science, the 
stern facts of observation, cannot be disregarded. Whether we ignore 
them or not, sooner or later their full significance will be triumphantly ac- 
knowledged." — Rays Contributions to Mental Pathology, pp. 46-7. 

"We live in a transition period, when the old faiths which comforted 
nations, and not only so but made nations, seem to have spent their force. 
I do not find the religions of men at this moment very creditable to them, 
but either childish and insignificant, or unmanly and effeminating. The 
fatal trait is the divorce between religion and morality. Here are know- 
nothing religions, or churches that proscribe intellect; scortatory religions; 
slave-holding and slave-trading religions ; and in the decent populations, 
idolatries wherein the whiteness of the ritual covers scarlet indulgence." — 
Emerson's Conduct of Life, p. 181. 

The development of the religious principles is in- 
dispensable to the health of both body and mind. 
Hitherto morality and religion have been not only di- 
vorced from each other, but removed from the associ- 
ation of things physical to a plane above the common 
level of human nature. In the popular conception, 
religion is something devised for man's wearing ; a 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 12 g 

garment fitted for him by superhuman hands, which 
he can put on or off as occasion requires ; and which 
may afford him much inconvenience in this world of 
practicalities, but which it would be exceedingly unsafe 
to be without in the world to come : — a mask for Sun- 
days, holy days, the confessional, superannuated sti- 
pendiaries, and death-beds ! Long ago, in our youthful 
days, we " experienced religion," and urged its bene- 
fits upon our young playfellows and sisters. The 
reply invariably was : " I don't want religion now ; it 
would interfere with my fun. Wait until I am sick, or 
old, and likely to die ; it will then be time enough to 
get it." Such child-like ideas of religion were in strict 
accord with the literal teachings of the pious then ; 
nor do they differ materially from that dealt out to 
needy people in the catechisms and pulpits of to-day ! 
True religion is not in the market, and cannot be 
bought and sold, bartered for, nor begged with a 
prayer. It is distilled in the human heart, by slow 
and silent processes, and is, in truth, as truly an evo- 
lution in humanity as passion or reason; and, not 
unlike those elements of the human mind, subject to 
laws, which, while they are divine and spiritual, are 
not the less material and physical. It springs legiti- 
mately from man's moral nature ; from those innate 
sentiments of justice, mercy, faith, and hope; the 
love of purity, goodness, and truth ; and the inner con- 
sciousness of a Supreme Being, which is, after all, the 
only demonstrable proof of his existence afforded by 
nature. Mr. Emerson says of people of superior moral 
quality, that they " are nearer to the secret of God than 
others ; are bathed by sweeter waters ; they hear no- 
tices, they see visions, where others are vacant. We 



30 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



believe that holiness confers a certain insight, because 
not by our private, but by our public force, can we 
share and know the nature of things."* 

These divine elements of human nature exhibit the 
highest expression of creative wisdom ; they comprise 
the moral sense, the possession of which distinguishes 
man from the lower animals. If they be not the pro- 
duct of man's moral brain, it is demonstrable that they 
are dependent upon it for exercise and manifestation ; 
and that they are variously modified by causes which 
affect the brain and nervous system. Indeed, the 
highest manifestation of the moral sense is always 
associated with a corresponding development of the 
brain and nervous system. In nature the one is never 
observed dissociated from the other. 

The purpose of our inquiry, however, is not affected 
by questions respecting the abstract nature and origin 
of the moral powers. The investigation of those 
belongs to the provinces of physiology and psychology. 
It matters not, in a practical sense, whether they be 
the cause or sequence of the physical faculties. Their 
intimate connection and sympathy with physical agents 
and influences have been demonstrated, and sufficient 
warrant is afforded thereby for their surrender to the 
associate care of the physician and moral teacher. 

In a fully developed, well-balanced mind, the moral 
faculties comprise about one-fourth of the cerebrum. 
The finer feelings, emotions, and sentiments, which 
dignify and ennoble the character, are associated with 
this part of the sensorium. Religion has its rise and 
authority in the activity of these superior faculties, — 

* Essay on Worship. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. ^ 

not the forms, symbols, oblations, ordinances, and 
theological doctrines with which religion has been 
invested, but the tendency to love and worship the 
grand and beautiful in nature ; the desire for inward 
purity and goodness, " to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly "* before Heaven. The posses- 
sion of these powers constitutes man a religious being, 
let the manner of their exercise be what it may. The 
fire-worshiping Parsee, or the humble believer in 
Buddha and the authority of the Institutes of Menu, 
or the devout follower of Fohi and Confucius, with all 
his grotesque forms, gesticulations, and ordinances, is 
no less religious than the praying Christian, with his 
cross and eucharist, of a more rational civilization. 

The neglect of moral culture and religious discipline 
is, obviously, incompatible with good health, useful- 
ness, and the highest degree of happiness. " If your 
eye is on the eternal," says Mr. Emerson, in the 
essay already quoted, " your intellect will grow, and 
your opinions and actions will have a beauty which 
no learning or combined advantages of other men 
can rival. The moment of your loss of faith, and 
acceptance of the lucrative standard, will be marked 
in the pause or solstice of genius, the sequent retro-' 
gression, and the inevitable loss of attraction to other 
minds. "f " I think it may be assumed," says Dr. 
Austin Flint, " that the exercise of pure and lofty sen- 
timents is conducive to the health and vigor of body 
as well as mind. "J The active cultivation of these 
powers is demanded by the highest considerations of 



* Micah vi. 8. f Essay on Worship, p. 190, 

\ Practitioner, January, 1872. 



132 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



physiology, morality, and the spiritual welfare and 
prosperity of the race. What has already been ob- 
served respecting the necessity of maintaining func- 
tional balance between the corporeal and mental func- 
tions applies with more than ordinary force to the 
development of the moral faculties and intellect. 
Atony in the latter not only disposes to physical dis- 
ease, but is the direct source of more wretchedness 
to the individual and to society than it is possible to 
detail or even estimate. The perception of the prin- 
ciples of the Creator's moral government rests en- 
tirely on the integrity of these powers. Intellect 
there may be, reason, and the highest analytical and 
logical powers, but if the moral sense be wanting the 
individual is stripped of responsibility and becomes a 
moral idiot ! The consequence of their defective in- 
fluence upon the character finds painful expression in 
the manners and social habits of mankind. The annals 
of crime illustrate this fact in a marked degree, as 
all know ; but it is not pertinent to refer to them for 
examples of my meaning : they are too obvious and 
flagrant for question. The moral customs of the more 
law-abiding — the well-to-do and respectable classes — 
come more particularly within the scope of my criti- 
cism. The business and social habits of such exhibit 
a lamentable deficiency in moral principle, differing, not 
in kind but only in degree, from that which animates 
and impels the most flagitious violator of public mor- 
ality. The almost universal absence of fair dealing 
among men; the corruption of public officers, politi- 
cians, and the American Congress ; the lack of honor 
in minor business relations when inconsistent with 
personal interest ; the fashionable hypocrisy so widely 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. j^ 

cultivated in social circles, which incites nominal 
friends to profess feelings and emotions toward each 
other which neither feel, and to practice numberless 
acts intended to deceive ; the custom of making a prin- 
ciple of expediency, and of compelling the tongue to 
impeach the heart in the interest of a lie, a project, a 
position, a point, or a purse ; the vain willingness, so 
prevalent among nominal Christians, to pass for moie 
than their true personal value, — to seem better than 
they really are ; the canting hypocrite in places of 
trust and responsibility ; the tendency to exalt the 
reputation at the expense of innate character ; to live 
the life of a devil in secret and that of a saint in public ; 
these customs and practices in modern society illus- 
trate the moral deficiency to which I refer.* While 
there is no lack of popular religion, indeed that element 
appears in excess everywhere, immorality of this 
type has completely honeycombed the fabric of modern 
society, and made respectability and hypocrisy nearly 
synonymous terms ! Look at the moral conduct of 
professional men, — physicians, who, to pursue their 
practice in a becoming manner, ought to be worthv 
of a commission from the Most High ! How many 
of them allow an opportunity to appropriate the hard- 
earned success of a colleague to pass unimproved ? 
How common is the habit of evil speaking of each 
other among them; or, if wanting in moral courage 
to speak, " damn with faint praise ;" or, still worse, 
fatally wound the reputation of a colleague by a look, 
a contemptuous lift of the eyebrow, or other super- 
cilious pantomime, incompatible with even a moderate 



See note at the end of the chapter. 
12* 



134 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



sense of honor and justice! Instances have been 
known — or at least heard of — in the noble profession 
of medicine, of stealing a colleague's client by arts 
and tricks which, although not illegal, if done openly, 
would expel the moral culprit from the society of all 
right-minded men and women !* 

How common are breaches of fidelity and courtesy 
in social intercourse; insolent, or overbearing conduct 
toward fancied inferiors ; the indulgence of envy, 
malice, morbid suspicion, jealousy; contempt for pov- 
erty and the poor ; obsequiousness toward wealth and 
the rich ; habits of evil speaking and unwarrantable 
detraction ; ungenerous and uncharitable judgments ; 
rejoicings over the misfortunes of a rival, — I will not 
say an enemy, for it is quite unhuman to take pleasure 
in the prosperity of such a rival ; praying in public ; 
putting on the garb of religion, or frequenting places 
of worship, for business ends ; libeling an opponent, or 
retailing gossip to his prejudice; taking undue or un- 
fair advantage in trade ; false representations ; habits 
of exaggeration ; practicing numberless devices — not 



* The writer, on a particular occasion, sent for a colleague to assist him 
in the conduct of a difficult case. The counsel was a dignitary in one of 
the Christian churches, and had sustained the usual reputation among his 
class, of being a man of probity and honor. He responded to the call in 
due time, and courteously rendered all necessary aid. The following day, 
to the writer's surprise, he sent the patient his professional circular and 
card, and left a verbal request, that she would consult him respecting some 
chronic malady, which he had been happy enough to discover in the 
lady, — or, at least, to fancy he had, — as soon as she was recovered from her 
present illness! The moral turpitude of his course, bad at the best, is 
aggravated by the relation which he professed to sustain to his colleague, — 
that of cordial personal and professional friendship. Acts, so manifestly 
dishonorable as this, are, unhappily, not very uncommon in the profession* 
of medicine ! 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



135 



strictly unlawful — by which profits may be enhanced : 
as underweight; watering milk, whisky, and molas- 
ses ; selling some articles below cost, and others above, 
in order to attract custom by appealing to undersell a 
neighbor; adulterations of food and drink and various 
articles of manufacture ; sales of shoddy, or damaged 
goods and merchandise, etc. ! It is impossible to mis- 
take the animus of these things, nor to doubt that they 
are committed by people who would do worse acts if 
they dared. Fraud and dishonor are so common in 
Christendom, in all the trades, customs, usages, deal- 
ings, and professions, as to suggest universal plethora 
of the passions and propensities, and a corresponding 
anaemia of the moral brain and sense. Everybody 
suspects the honesty of his neighbor, and the neigh- 
bor, in turn, suspects the trustworthiness of everybody; 
and in the moral chaos of the times the skeptics find 
new and just reasons to doubt the practical value of 
the gospel, and the pagans to make caustic reproaches ~> s 
against the religion of Christ! 

It is needless to remark that the prevalence of such 
vices indicates moral aberration, an unsound, ill-bal- 
anced mental constitution, inimical to the health of 
either body or mind. They have an origin in the 
undue and unrestrained activity of the selfish propen- 
sities ; powers good in themselves, not necessarily 
vicious nor vitiating, nor incompatible with the noblest 
moral and intellectual endowment, whose function it 
is to look after the interests of self. They are legiti- 
mately self-seeking, and very properly concerned in 
the supply and gratification of the animal wants. It 
does not accord with their nature to be choice in the 
means or method employed to this end. Who ever 



I36 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

saw an animal mindful of the rights and feelings in its 
fellows ? Foxes rob hen-roosts, dogs steal their din- 
ners, and animals, in general, prey upon one another 
for the same reason and in the exercise of the same 
impulse that impels men, when unrestrained by the 
moral sense, to prey upon the rights and interests of 
their fellow-men. Nothing better is expected of the 
animal, for reasons well understood; but a high moral 
sentiment would effectually oppose such flagrant dis- 
regard of the rights of others by man ; and he is, in 
general, afraid or ashamed, when actuated by no higher 
motive, to commit such deeds openly and above board, 
and accordingly seeks the shadows of the night, and 
the ingenuity of low cunning or adroit trickery, to 
achieve the end he desires, without incurring the legal 
penalty attached ! 

The natural safeguard against the existence and ex- 
ercise of such perversity in man is found in strength- 
ening the moral sentiments with which the Creator 
has endowed every human creature. These are the 
natural antagonists of the propensities. While the 
latter are self-seeking, the former are concerned with 
the interests of others. A high sense of honor is 
shocked at the thought of committing deception or 
telling an untruth; a fine sense of justice is out- 
raged at the idea of double dealing, or in " playing 
sharp," as so many glory in doing; the sentiment of 
benevolence is wounded at the sight of distress and 
poverty, and finds the sweetest consolation in binding 
up broken hearts and relieving the wretchedness of 
the world, without regard to race or moral condition. 
The beautiful story of the good Samaritan is a fine 
illustration of the influence of this sentiment upon the 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. i^y 

character. It seeks not its own but others' good. In 
a world of so much want and misery, arising, in good 
part, from privation of the physical comforts of life, 
the hoarding of great riches would seem to be in- 
compatible with the possession of a large degree of 
goodness ; and from this point of view the advice- of 
Christ to the rich man seeking salvation, to sell all he 
had " and give to the poor," receives additional force 
and meaning. 

The aspiration for inward goodness and purity is 
also peculiar to man, and its cultivation holds him 
absolutely above the practice of everything mean and 
groveling. It is illustrated in the prayer of the He- 
brew poet : " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and 
renew a right spirit within me."* It was also exem- 
plified in the character of that eminent rationalist, 
Gibbon, who, through fear of being thought better 
than he really was, persistently endeavored to appear 
to disadvantage, — to put the worse side out. A good 
man is truly upright in all his ways, and delights in 
the love of the good and the beautiful, and in dispens- 
ing joy and happiness to all around. " A good man," 
said Christ, " out of the good treasure of his heart 
bringeth forth that which is good ; and an evil man 
out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth 
that which is evil."f 

Then, again, the exercise of deference and respect 
to our fellows and to the Supreme in nature is another 
important element of moral gymnastics. The true 
man worships the divine in all things, and is drawn 
away from the selfish and ignoble toward the Supreme 

* Psalm li. 10. | Luke vi. 45. 



I38 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

Good. There is no stronger element in the moral 
brain than this ; and its proper cultivation would do 
much to withdraw the mind from the purely sensuous 
and selfish to the supremely virtuous and exalting. 
Under the influence of superstition this tendency in 
man is liable to abuse or perversion. It then leads 
to idolatry, or the worship of ignoble things, animate 
and inanimate objects, saints, relics, symbols, emblems, 
sacred writings, objects of nature, the stellar universe, 
etc. " We worship the promotion of all good," says 
the Zend Avesta ; " all that is very beautiful, shining, 
immortal, bright, everything that is good." The 
heathens, however, are not the only idolators. If 
idolaters are those who confine not their worship 
to the Infinite Spirit, the number is exceedingly 
large, and limited to no race nor condition of man- 
kind. 

Again, there is another principle in man's stellar 
crown which, perhaps, has no parallel in nature, 
namely, the love of right. Surely, nothing can equal 
the grandeur which this element imparts to the char- 
acter. It suggests the thought of duty, and compels 
the individual to respond to duty's call, whatever may 
be the consequences to himself. " Let justice be 
done, though the heavens fall!" is its stern decree. It 
does not calculate the consequences ; they must take 
care of themselves. It does not ask, " Is this course 
expedient ?" but rather, " Is it right ? Ought I to 
do this thing?" If he ought to do it, it is done, and 
the consequences are left with God. 

Conduct inspired by a high sense of duty is char- 
acteristic of great minds ; and the fearless courage 
which such minds exhibit, when occasion requires, 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



I 39 



is characteristic of this sense. Goethe says,* that 
" Napoleon visited those sick of the plague, in order 
to prove that the man who could vanquish fear could 
vanquish the plague also ; and he was right. 'Tis 
incredible what force the will has in such cases : it 
penetrates the body, and puts it in a state of activity, 
which repels all hurtful influences ; while fear invites 
them." "Be just and fear not!" is its inspiring 
motto. Henry Clay expressed the natural language 
of the principle when he uttered those memorable 
words : " I would rather be right than to be President." 
There is something peculiarly noble and ennobling in 
a character which subordinates all considerations to 
that of conscience and a sense of duty. Such char- 
acters furnish the stuff that martyrs are made of. 
They glory in obloquy, persecution, and proscription 
for the sake of their convictions ; fearing nothing so 
much as the fear of wronging their neighbors. And 
death itself, for truth's sake, instead of bringing pain 
and wretchedness in its contemplation, increases the 
joy and glory of an existence of which meaner mor- 
tals can have no adequate conception or appreciation. 
" Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and per- 
secute you, and shall say all manner of evil against 
you falsely, for my sake."f Christ admonishes such 
to rejoice and be exceeding glad, and says their 
reward will be correspondingly great in heaven. In 
physiology every act has its recompense. Providence 
pays as he goes, asking no man to trust him ; and that 
such acts of moral heroism and personal abnegation 
should be also rewarded hereafter, seems not an irra- 

* Quoted from Emerson's " Conduct of Life," p. 203. f Matthew v. 11. 



140 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



tional probability. But the possession and exercise 
of so high a principle or quality of human nature, to 
the extent spoken of in the text, would surely be of 
itself an all-sufficient reward. " In vain," says Horace 
Mann, " do they talk of happiness who never subdued 
an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who 
never sacrificed a present for a future good, or a per- 
sonal to a general one, can speak of happiness only 
as the blind do of colors." The exercise of duty and 
the suppression of impulses which do not accord 
therewith have obviously their own delights and com- 
pensations, which, in this instance, must be supreme, 
since it is performing the grandest act and fulfilling the 
highest law of human nature. 

The personal influences of the moral sentiments in 
general, when in the ascendency, may be more easily 
observed than defined. A high-toned man is known 
wherever he goes, and needs no other indorsement 
nor introduction to give him ready access to the best 
circles. " Fear God," says Emerson, " and where you 
go men shall think they walk in hallowed cathedrals 
A high aim reacts on the means, on the 
days, on the organs of the body." The face ; the cut 
and expression of the features ; the texture and quality 
of the hair and tissues ; the manner and habits ; the 
ease and grace of the physical movements ; the quiet 
dignity and general make-up ; the moral presence, 
speech and address of such a man, stamp him at once 
as a superior being, and the noblest work of God. The 
harmony of the physical and mental powers ; the 
simplicity of his habits; the quiet, ease, and orderly 
tenor of all his ways, largely exempt him from dis- 
ease and suffering. Good health is the frequent wages 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. Y ^ 

of morality. The fortitude and courage in trials and 
misfortune; the firmer self-reliance, and calmer faith 
and trust, under affliction ; while they secure greater 
exemption from the operation of morbific causes in 
general, render him far less likely to succumb to them 
when ill than men less happily endowed. This fact 
has been observed by many writers* on hygiene and 
therapeutics, and affords additional inducement to the 
lovers of an old age, particularly, for the active cultiva- 
tion of the moral powers. Mr. George Combe felt 
impelled by considerations, physical as well as moral, 
to affirm that a certain portion of each day should be 
set apart for moral and religious culture. His observa- 
tions on this point are so eminently wise and judicious 
that I cannot forbear to give a brief space to them : 

" So many hours a day ought to be devoted to the 
cultivation and gratification of our moral and religious 
sentiments ; that is to say, in exercising these in har- 
mony with intellect, and especially in acquiring the 
habit of admiring, loving, and yielding obedience to 
the Creator and his institutions. This last object is 
of vast importance. Intellect is barren of practical 
fruit, however rich it may be in knowledge, until it is 
fired and prompted to act by moral sentiment. In my 
view, knowledge by itself is comparatively worthless 
and impotent, compared with what it becomes when 
vivified by lofty emotions. It is not enough that in- 
tellect is informed; the moral faculties must co-operate 
in yielding obedience to the precepts which the intel- 
lect recognizes to be true. As creation is one great 



* " In so far, then, as bodily health and vigor afford protection against 
disease, the exercise of these sentiments is prophylactic." — Dr. Austin Flint. 

13 



!42 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

system, of which God is the author and preserver, we 
may fairly presume that there must be harmony among 
all its parts, and between it and its Creator. The hu- 
man mind is a portion of creation, and its constitution 
must be included in this harmonious scheme. The 
grand object of the moral and intellectual faculties of 
man, therefore, ought to be the study of God and his 
works. . . . Philosophy, while separated from the 
/moral feelings, is felt by the people at large to be cold 
and barren. It may be calculated to interest individ- 
uals possessing high intellectual endowments; but as, 
in general, the moral and religious sentiments greatly 
predominate in energy over the intellectual powers, it 
fails to interest the mass of mankind. On the other 
hand, before natural religion can appear in all its 
might and glory, it must become philosophical. Its 
foundations must be laid in the system of creation; its 
authority must be deduced from the principles of that 
system; and its applications must be enforced by a 
demonstration of the power of Providence operating 
in enforcing the execution of its dictates. While rea- 
son and religion are at variance, both are obstructed 
in producing their full beneficial effects. God has 
placed harmony between them, and it is only human 
imperfection and ignorance that introduce discord."* 

While mankind differ widely respecting the utility 
of the various modes and forms of religious exercises, 
all rationally minded people can cordially unite upon 
the end which they are designed to promote. Which- 
ever outward form or ceremony is most conducive to 
the growth of inward purity and virtue, and most 

* Constitution of Man, pp. 103-4. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



143 



effective in strengthening the moral faculties and lifting 
the soul above purely selfish and ignoble ends and 
aims, and in inspiring higher and nobler purposes, is 
best. Practically, the question is thus one of expe- 
rience. That system of religious training most fruitful 
of practical results — these to be measured, not by the 
number of converts or subscribers to the church-roll, 
but rather by the number who exhibit in their lives 
the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul says is " love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- 
ness, temperance"* — must ultimately receive the pref- 
erence of every heart, as it already has of untrammeled 
reason. 

Mankind should be taught the superior advantages 
derived from the practice of honesty and virtue in the 
private thought and life. He who harbors an unhal- 
lowed thought is generating a poison within him that 
will sooner or later infect his whole being. The stand- 
ard of moral valuations should be changed. Instead of 
its being wealth, or position, it should be character and 
moral force. Nothing is easier to show than that the 
former is temporal, deceitful, and fallacious; while the 
latter is spiritual, elevating, and eternal. Emerson says 
there is no greater proof of skepticism than " the base 
rate at which the highest mental and moral gifts are 
held." Herein lies the main cause of the evil tendency 
of the times. " Let a man attain the highest and 
broadest culture that any American has possessed, 
then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or 
other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the 
best thing has happened to him." Such is the low 

* Galatians v. 22, 23. 



144 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



estimate which our Christian — say rather unchristian 
— civilization places on the diviner excellencies of 
human nature ! 

The following chapter elucidates some of the chief 
elements and agents of moral hygiene. It only remains 
in this place to consider the influences of some of the 
opposing and depressing emotions and impulses : 

I. The discipline of the emotions of the mind is a 
matter which clearly comes within the scope of mental 
hygiene, since by the abuse of them the bodily health 
and the integrity of the mental structure may be seri- 
ously compromised, and even death itself produced. 
He enjoys the best health and lives the longest life, 
who, other things being equal, maintains the greatest 
degree of mental poise and equanimity, and is the freest 
from violent emotions either of pleasure or pain. An 
excess in either direction produces exhaustion of the 
nervous system and debility of the physical powers. 
We have known several instances of catalepsy induced 
by immoderate joy, and the shock of sudden and un- 
expected news, of a pleasurable or a disagreeable na- 
ture.* In hysterical, epileptic, or apoplectic people, 
the indulgence of powerful emotions has been known to 
produce dangerous symptoms. Violent anger some- 
times develops jaundice, or gives rise to melancholy, 
and not unfrequently to a paroxysm of fever. In sen- 
sitive persons anger disorders all the functions of or- 
ganic life. It frequently poisons the blood as effect- 
ively, and with far greater dispatch, than colocynth or 
conium. The secretions are also liable to become 

* " Extravagant joy produced madness in many of the successful adven- 
turers in the South Sea speculation, in England, in the year 1720." — Rush 
on the Mind. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



145 



vitiated from this cause ; and the milk of mothers is 
sometimes rendered unwholesome thereby, to such a 
degree as to seriously affect the health of their babes. 
Madness is not an infrequent effect of violent rage ;* 
and examples of sudden death from that cause are 
quite numerous. 

2. The influence of fear is no less potent for mental 
mischief than anger. Many instances of sudden 
death from that emotion are on record, and its effect 
upon the color of the hair is notorious ; the blackest 
hair having been known to turn quite white from that 
cause in a few hours. Animals, likewise, suffer from 
the same emotion. We have known canaries to be 
instantly killed by a cat leaping toward the cage in 
which the birds were confined ; and Mr. Young, in 
the " Edinburgh Geographical Journal," relates the 
case of a blackbird prostrated by being frightened by 
a cat. Its feathers subsequently fell off, " and were 
renewed, but the new ones were perfectly white," 
thus producing the rare paradox of a " white black- 
bird." Convulsions and imbecility have been caused 
by fright, as also have paralysis and apoplexy ; and 
insanity is a more frequent effect than either, f Young 
children are . extremely susceptible to this emotion; 
and their tender minds should be carefully guarded 
from its depressing, ruinous effects. 

3. Many temperaments suffer from the influence of 
excess of joy. The door-keeper of Congress is said 
to have died from joy on receiving the news of the 

* " Charles VI., of France, was deranged from a paroxysm of anger." 
— Rush on the Mind, p. 39. 

f" Fear often produces madness, Dr. Brambilla tells us, in new recruits in 
the Austrian army." — Ibid., p. 39. 

13* 



!^6 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

surrender of Lord Cornwallis's army. " The famous 
Fouquet," says Winslow,* " died on being told that 
Louis XIV. had restored him to liberty." Zimmer- 
man^ in his experience in physic, relates the case of a 
worthy lady, who, becoming reduced to extreme pov- 
erty, died in consequence of being presented with a 
rare and valuable jewel. And quite recently a man 
in New York City, in indigent circumstances, went 
mad and blew his brains out, upon learning that he 
had become heir to a fortune. 

4. The emotion of grief is a powerful depressor of 
the nervous functions. Joy may shock and paralyze 
the infirm, but a real heart-grief withers and breaks 
the stoutest constitutions. Grief dries up the fountain 
of interest and sympathy which was designed to flow 
out toward all mankind, and contracts the universe 
into a shell, of which its victim is the centre and chief 
personage. Numerous remedies have been recom- 
mended for the effects of this emotion. The most 
efficacious remedy, however, is diversion. The mind 
must be taken off the object of its sorrow and diverted 
to new scenes and objects. Awakening new interests, 
on which the mind can exercise its powers freely and 
fully, is the most effective antidote to a grief that 
would otherwise be incurable. Some of the lower 
animals are subject to this emotion; and not unfre- 
quently they have been known to pine away and 
actually die of it. 

5. The effect of anxiety upon the mental functions 
is analogous to grief. Nothing is more wearing than 
the fear of an impending evil. I have known parents 

* Body and Mind, p. 154. f Ibid. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



1 47 



to grow gray, and live years in a month, watching 
over the fate of a favorite child ; and if death, forsooth, 
were averted, to sink into exhaustion and slow fever. 
The fear and apprehension of misfortune is far more 
weakening to the vitality, if prolonged, than the sud- 
den onset of the gravest calamities. An individual 
may receive, and react from, the latter, but the former 
checks life's warm current and dries the very bones. 
Some idea of the strength of this emotion maybe had 
from observing its influence upon grief and its con- 
comitants. An instance of almost helpless hysterical 
debility in a mother came under our observation, which 
was stimulated into convalescence by the awakening 
of anxiety for the safety of one of her children. Hysteria 
is often cured, as it is also caused, by fright. Madness, 
also, has sometimes yielded to the influence of that 
emotion. Indeed, diseases in general are strongly in- 
fluenced by all the emotions ; even rheumatism has been 
known to subside, instantly, under the operation of 
intense anxiety. An instance of articular rheumatism 
was reported to the writer recently, which, after resist- 
ing more rational remedies for days, was finally instan- 
taneously cured by the report that a child of the patient 
had been run over in the street by a passing vehicle. 
The report proved false as to his own child, but the 
cure was nevertheless complete ! 

6. Remorse is a prominent cause of mental depres- 
sion and disease. "A conscience burdened with guilt," 
says Dr. Rush, " whether real or imaginary, is a fre- 
quent cause of madness." Remorse is frequently an 
indication of mental disease, in which the guilt is 
purely imaginary. Several cases of the latter have 
come under my observation, — one, a newly-married 



I4 8 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

woman, who, during courtship, had attended a religi- 
ous revival, and had been exhorted to give up all for 
Christ as the only condition of her future salvation. 
She could not give up all. She felt there was one 
whom she could not renounce, even for Christ and 
the reward of eternal glory. After marriage, she fell 
into quiet melancholy, and continued for months to 
imagine that she had grieved the Holy Spirit, and was 
irredeemably lost. The process of gestation and the 
ultimate birth of a child, aided probably by medicines, 
finally dispelled the delusion. 

Remorse from natural causes is no less distressing 
nor less difficult of cure. The sense of real guilt 
harasses the mind, destroys sleep and digestion, and 
speedily undermines the general health. A fatal case 
of that nature came under my observation a few years 
since. It was that of a middle-aged lady, of good 
family and personal antecedents, who had violated the 
seventh commandment. The sin preyed upon her 
mind to such a degree that her health soon succumbed 
to it. Mild melancholy followed, and finally death 
itself put an end to her mental misery. 

7. Then there are the depressing influences of dis- 
appointment, — disappointment in love, ambition, for- 
tune, business, etc., either one of which tends to 
destroy mental equilibrium, and to produce in nerv- 
ous, susceptible temperaments, most distressing dis- 
eases and derangements. Suicidal mania is the most 
common effect of disappointment, let the cause be 
what it may. Disappointment in business, or ambi- 
tion, is as likely to kindle this morbid impulse as dis- 
appointment in love. History records many examples 
of suicides among generals and statesmen caused by 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. j^g 

defeated ambition, or by incurring the displeasure of 
their sovereign ; and Dr. Rush records the case of a 
theatrical player in Philadelphia, in 1803, who, having 
been hissed off the stage, was so mortified that he 
soon after destroyed himself. The sense of shame, 
ridicule, loss of reputation, calumny, etc., are all, like- 
wise, morbific causes, and justly merit the careful con- 
sideration of the moral therapeutist. 

8. The indulgence of those malevolent impulses of 
jealousy and revenge is incompatible with a sound 
mental hygiene or a high moral character. Jealousy 
and revenge go hand in hand ; they are twin- 
brothers, — conceived in sin and born in iniquity. 
Either of them is a frenzy of the mind, disturbing its 
peace and repose ; a plague, eating out its heart ; a 
canker, consuming the very life and soul. " Of all 
the diseases of the mind," says Lord Karnes, "jeal- 
ousy is that which most things serve for aliment, and 
fewest for remedy."* "Jealousy," continues this 
shrewd observer, " is the most vain, idle, foolish, and 
turbulent disease that ever assaulted and oppressed 
the minds of mankind. . . . When it happens to 
affect men, it robs them of the comforts of life ; makes 
them distrustful, timorous, . . . testy, pettish, peevish, 
etc. If one speaks in jest, they take it in earnest. If 
two talk in whisper, the third thinks they talk of him. 
. . . But if his jealousy relates to womankind and 
centres in a wife, it is a domestic plague that eats and 
drinks and lodges with him; a fury that haunts him 
and disturbs all his affairs abroad, making his torment 
the greater by fancying his suspicion proceeds from 

* Sketches of the History of Man, vol. ii. p. 63. 



ISO 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



love."* His lordship is quite as severe on jealous 
women : " When jealousy seizes on wives, those poor, 
weak, resistless souls, they are objects of compassion, 
to see how miserably it torments and tyrannizes over 
them; . . . after it has once possessed them thoroughly, 
the same causes that serve for a foundation of good- 
will serve them for a foundation of mutual hatred. 
. . . The virtue, health, merit, and reputation of 
the husband are the incendiaries of their fury and ill- 
will . . . for there is no action of a jealous woman, 
let her be never so chaste and good a housewife, but 
it relishes of anger and rudeness. "f 

9. Superstition possesses an influence over the 
human mind in comparison to which all other agents 
and influences fade into insignificance. The word has 
been brought into ill repute in modern times ; but its 
origin does credit to man, for it originally meant 
" super-starry" — looking above. We are not prepared 
to affirm that an element of such amazing proportions 
in human nature is entirely out of place. Such an 
affirmation would impeach the wisdom of the divine 
Architect, and the beneficence of the divine govern- 
ment. So far from this being our intention, we believe 
that the existence of that blind faith and unreasoning 
credulity which superstition has come to mean is 
quite legitimate in its day and generation. And what 
is legitimate is of divine appointment. Ignorance and 
credulity are never dissociated. Belief is strongest 
when reason is weakest. Faith is not especially de- 
sirable when the essence of things needful is no longer 
an object of hope, but of present, living realization. 

* Sketches of the History of Man, vol. ii. p. 62. | Ibid -' vo1 - "• P- 6 3- 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



151 



The diffusion of knowledge dispels superstition, with 
its horrid brood of dark mysticisms, as effectually as 
the day-god dissipates the murky mists of early 
morning, and with wisdom of equal beneficence. 

That superstition of some sort is natural to the 
tender mind there can be no doubt. The mind of the 
savage is thoroughly imbued with it. Having no 
comprehension of the laws of sequence, he naturally 
refers every extraordinary exhibition of force and 
power in nature to supernatural agencies. Thunder is 
the voice of deity. Lightning and the storm-clouds 
are exhibitions of his fierce wrath. Warmth and 
sunshine are evidence of his pleasure and benignity. 
The wild and destructive tornado, the ravages of dis- 
ease, famine, and pestilence ; the strange and unusual 
phenomena which the heavens sometimes present, are 
exhibitions of deity's revenge, or the reckless pranks 
of an infernal spirit. Dusky-minded people, devoid 
of a rational philosophy of mental processes, and 
who practice all sorts of demoniacal iniquity upon 
one another, imagine the existence of evil genii, 
tempting them to evil and sin, and who are ever 
devising plans to involve the race in inextricable diffi- 
culties or hopeless ruin. " In any nation," says Mr. 
Lecky,* " it has been believed, at an early period, that 
pestilences, famines, comets, rainbows, eclipses, and 
other rare and startling phenomena, were effected, not 
by the ordinary sequence of natural laws, but by the 
direct intervention of spirits." The fearful famine 
that afflicted France in the eighth century was repre- 
sented by the priests, who were to be profited by such 

* History of Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 63. 



152 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



representation, as a consequence of the repugnance of 
the people to the payment of tithes. " In the ninth 
century, a total eclipse of the sun struck terror through 
Europe, and is said to have been one of the causes of the 
death of a French king. In the tenth century, a simi- 
lar phenomenon put to flight an entire army. More 
than once, the apparition of a comet filled Europe 
with an almost maddening terror; and whenever a 
noted person was struck down by sudden illness, the 
death was attributed to sorcery."* " Conscience 
makes cowards of us all," says the great bard. There 
is no end to the evil imaginings of a wicked heart, 
nor to the terror which a belief in the power of om- 
nipotent justice inspires in the mind of the evil-doer. 

While, therefore, fear, ignorance, and credulity are 
the foundation of superstition, in its modern accepta- 
tion, superstition and theology are the foundation of 
religion — of all the religions that have, in turn, blessed 
and cursed mankind, — blessed, in restraining the igno- 
rant and vicious from careers of vice and crime ; cursed, 
by making use of the symbols, rites, devices, doctrines, 
and other religious enginery to blind the eyes of those 
who have eyes to see, and to enslave the mind of 
those who are capable of comprehending the truths of 
God and nature, and who need no other inducement 
to live uprightly and to walk humbly than the reward 
which naturally accompanies a pure and virtuous life. 
In making error a crime, punishable by the most hid- 
eous penalty that a morbid imagination can conceive 
of; in compelling outward assent to certain creeds and 
doctrines on penalty of unending torture ; in ranking 



* History of Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 6.}. Sec references there. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



153 



certain penances and sprinklings of superior impor- 
tance to a godly life, the church has abused the faith 
which mankind has reposed in it ; has run itself 
aground, and is, in truth, going to pieces on the very- 
beach of civilization. Faith is still the magical power 
which it advocates as the panacea for all the ills that 
the soul is heir to. Faith in truth and virtue ? Nay. 
Faith in the cross, faith in the eucharist, faith in water, 
faith in fast-days, the pope, the sabbath, the creed, and 
in sundry other outward observances. The faith that 
was and is so potent on the life and habits of the 
unlettered savage and barbarian, the church is still 
blindly holding out to a civilization that has long 
since turned its back upon her; and which, instead of 
leading as she used to do, and ought always to do, is 
dragging heavily in the rear!* 

The church has never, in any age, over-estimated the 
power of superstition among the ignorant and credu- 
lous, f The spiritual Head of the church assured his 



* " The science of modern times, however, has taken a more special direc- 
tion. Fixing its attention exclusively on the order of nature, it has sepa- 
rated itself wholly from theology, whose function it is to seek after its cause. 
In this science is fully justified, alike by the entire independence of its ob- 
jects, and by the historical fact that it has been continually hampered and 
impeded in its search after truth as it is in nature, by the restraints which 
theologians have attempted to impose upon its inquiries." — Inaugural Lec- 
ture of Wm. B. Carpenter, M.D., F.R.S., before the Brit. Assoc, for the 
Advancement of Science, England, Aug. 14, 1872. 

I "The destruction of the belief in witchcraft and of religious persecu- 
tion, the decay of those ghastly notions concerning future punishments 
which for centuries diseased the imaginations and embittered the character 
of mankind, the emancipation of suffering nationalities, the abolition of 
the belief in the guilt of error which paralyzed the intellectual, and of the 
asceticism which paralyzed the material, progress of mankind, may be 
justly regarded as among the greatest triumphs of civilization." — History of 
Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. p. 357. 

H 



!$4 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

followers, time after time, that the secret of so-called 
miracle-working; was credulity: "And Jesus said unto 
them, Believe ye that I am able to do this ? They said 
unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, 
saying, According to your faith be it unto you." And 
to the woman who had been ill for twelve years, and 
who was finally cured by a single touch of his gar- 
ment, he said: " Daughter, be of good comfort; thy 
faith hath made thee whole."* " All things are possi- 
ble to him that believeth!' " He that believeth shall be 
saved; he that believetli not shall be damned, "f etc. 
The apostle James recommended praying for the sick. 
"Is any among you afflicted ? let him pray." "And 
the prayer of faith shall save the sick," etc. The 
apostle Paul was an ardent believer in the efficacy of 
faith. " For we walk by faith, not by sight," said he, 
in his second epistle to the Corinthians. And again, 
in his epistle to the Galatians : " But the Scripture 
hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith 
of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. 
But before faith came, we were kept under the law, 
shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be re- 
vealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to 
bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by 
faith ,"! etc. 

Such is the foundation of the absurd pretensions 
of all the great religions of the world; witchcraft; 
fortune-telling; magnetism; medical charlatanry; and, 
also, of other curious psychological phenomena, of 
which the world is so full to-day. The extravagant 

* Matt. ix. 28, 29, co. f Mark ix. 23; xvi. 16. 

X lames v. 13, 15 ; 2 Cor. v. 7; Gal. iii. 22, 23, 24. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 



155 



belief in the offices and power of the pope gave 
him, at one time, absolute control, not only of the 
private conscience, but also of science, literature, and 
the social and political affairs of Christendom. The 
terror of excommunication brought princes and phi- 
losophers, peasants and politicians, down on their 
knees ; and a papal bull could convulse a continent, 
and send consternation to the hearts and homes of 
millions of people. So long as the people believed in 
him, put \\xi^X\z\t faith in his pretensions and doctrines, 
the church had a fulcrum by which it could move the 
world. 

The history of all people is full of abuses of this 
fine element of human nature. Lesanky's "Voyage 
Around the World," gives an "account of a religious 
sect in the Sandwich Islands, who arrogate to them- 
selves the power of praying people to death. Who- 
ever incurs their displeasure receives notice that the 
homicide litany is about to begin ; and such are the 
effects on the imagination, that the very notice is fre- 
quently sufficient with these people to produce the 
effect.*" The Fijian savages, in the South Pacific 
have a woman sorcerer to attend them when sick. 
She proceeds to cure her patient by applying her 
mouth to his body and pretending to suck a quan- 
tity of pebble-stones from him. She assures the 
sufferer that the disease is thus taken away from him ; 
and such is the power of faith that he speedily recovers. 
When a chief dies, several of his servants are buried 
alive with him. To this custom they cheerfully sub- 
mit, that they may attend their chief in the other 

* Winslow's Body and Mind, p. 156. 



^6 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

world. Wives are frequently buried with their de- 
ceased husbands, mothers with their sons, that they 
may be companions, still, in hades ! Such is the 
power of unlettered faith. " To murder a wife," says 
the relator, " that she may be the companion of her 
deceased husband in hades, or a mother, that her son 
may not be buried alone, would be repugnant to every 
Christian heart; but not so to the Fijian."* Undoubt- 
edly; but then, burning alive the unhappy sorceress 
and possessed witches and spiritual mediums; putting 
to death, by slow torture, the heretic and pronounced 
infidel ; and decapitating those whose only guilt 
consists in refusing to yield obedience to established 
customs, rites and opinions, and many other religious 
a7iomalies, of similar nature, which has been so largely 
practiced in Christian countries, would probably be 
repugnant to every Fijian heart. Would we might 
say it were equally so to every Christian ! 

In England there exists a religious sect called the 
" Peculiar People," who still insist on practically main- 
taining the doctrine taught by St. James in the fifth 
chapter of his epistle, namely, to treat the sick with 
anointings and prayers. One of their number failed 
to recover, recently, under this treatment, whereupon 
the civil authorities placed the relatives of the de- 
ceased under arrest for failing to call in the aid of 
science in treating the deceased. The offenders were 
promptly released by their Christian prosecutors when 
the scriptural line of defense was made known ! The 
"Peculiar People" are regarded by their Christian 
neighbors as superstitious, and are placed by them 

* Williams's Fiji and the Fijians, vol. ii. p. 105. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. i^y 

under the ban of ridicule, totally oblivious, seem- 
ingly, of the fact that Christian prelates, popes, and 
kings practiced the same custom for centuries with 
scarcely provoking a smile. 

The world recently witnessed the curious spectacle 
of a whole nation in prayer for the life of a Christian 
prince, and the heir apparent to the English crown. 
The prince recovered, happily; but whether he did so 
through the direct answer to prayer can never be 
determined, since the friends of the patient were un- 
willing to trust him to the influence of prayer alone, 
but, with strange inconsistency, called in the aid of 
the medical art ! Just as if God needed the help of 
medicine to work his will ! We will only remark 
that the want of faith in the efficacy of human suppli- 
cation, evinced in refusing to commit the cure of dis- 
ease to the old power of superstition in this instance, 
is a most cheering sign of Christian progress. It 
indicates the triumph of common sense over the idola- 
trous teachings of religious advocates and creeds, of 
reason over credulity, of an intelligent faith over a 
degrading superstition, of the spirit of Christ over 
the doctrines of Paul and Constantine. The parallel 
of praying people into health when sick is that of 
praying them to death when well. The practice of 
one is quite as consistent as that of the other. The 
success of either may be possible under certain con- 
ditions of the human mind, — a mental condition which 
has been supposed to be incompatible with civiliza- 
tion and which is chiefly prevalent among the primi- 
tive tribes on its borders. It were manifestly inconsist- 
ent with reason and sound judgment to ridicule the one 
and to respect the other. The power which is here pre- 

r 4 * 



^8 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

sumed to give health, dissipate pestilence and famine ; 
promote the growth of crops, business enterprises, 
diplomacy; and which sends rain, or sunshine, in 
answer to prayer, could surely, by the exercise of a 
prerogative of far less scope, as easily encompass the 
life or death of a few unfortunate individuals, through 
the like influence, especially if the appeal be sufficiently 
eloquent and accompanied with the requisite degree 
of faith ! To this absurdity doth the premise lead. 



Note. 

The moral precepts and religious character of Christ 
have probably no equal in beauty and excellence in 
human history. The moral inconsistency of his pro- 
fessed followers is also without a parallel. There are 
to my mind no phenomena in all nature so strange 
and erratic as that presented by the average Christian ! 
He prays to be like his Divine Master, who declaimed 
against riches and took " no thought for the morrow," 
and straightway engrosses every thought in plans for 
acquiring wealth ! He prays to be delivered from all 
manner of wickedness and deceit, and engages directly 
in both with all the ardor and bent of his mind ! The 
symbol of self-sacrifice — the cross — he mounts upon 
conspicuous church-spires, pictures it upon prayer- 
books, and carves it in wood, stone, and the precious 
metals, for household ornaments, charms, personal orna- 
mentation, etc., and prosecutes, meantime, the most in- 
tricate schemes of selfish profit, in which he knows suc- 
cess must be attained at his neighbor's cost ! Nor is this 
the worst. He engages in stock-gambling, robbing 






MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. l tg 

the national treasury, the embezzlement of trust-funds, 
and indulges heartily in Credit-mobilier and " Back- 
pay" ! These operations may almost be said to have 
become respectable from their magnitude, and the high 
Christian character of the men who engage in them. 
Some of the smaller and less reputable forms of 
thieving and deceit by professed Christians have been 
mentioned in the foregoing pages ; but I cannot for- 
bear to add the following testimony on the subject 
from the distinguished orator and clergyman, Henry 
Ward Beecher : 

" Have we a conscience that loves the simplicity of 
truth for its own sake? The customary lie, the 
profitable lie, — are they not common in religion, in 
business, and in politics? You do not need to go 
back to the old ancient notion of honor — inflexible 
truthfulness. Can there be anything that our boys 
and girls are more likely to be benefited by than to be 
ashamed of lying in every form ? Take the matter 
of honesty. We are not a dishonest nation. Is a 
man striving to make a competency? I would make 
it by honesty; but the question is, suppose he cannot, 
what then ? 

" A young man, my neighbor, dries paint. He said 
to me the other day, 'This matter has got to such a 
state that the paint-men cannot be honest. My wife 
says to -me, Why don't you go to communion? I 
say I cannot when I know I have got to cheat the 
next day. I have to do so, and my customers know 
it, — and they want me to.' The adulteration is ninety 
per cent. He tells me it is one-third lead, then zinc, 
and then varieties ground together. ' That is what 
they demand,' he says. 



!6o MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. 

" ' I sell more that has not any lead in it than that 
which has.' I ask him, 'Where does that go?' He 
tells me, ' West and Northwest. Men that buy from 
me are not very particular sometimes about having 
lead in it. There is a man who buys a great many 
times from me during the year, and he is not particu- 
lar if the lead is not in it. He is a good man, worth 
four hundred thousand dollars ; is a member of the 
church, for I know he teaches a Bible-class. He 
comes down to me, and says, "My friend, can't you 
put a little lead into the paint you sell me ?" 

"'So I thought I would oblige him, and when I 
was melting a ton of lead I took a spoonful, and I put 
it into his paint, so that then he would be able to say 
to his customers, " Yes, there is lead in it." ' Although 
this may seem exaggeration, it is all the better for it, 
for exaggeration magnifies the object so that you can 
see better. It is not exaggeration to say that society 
has carried dishonesty into the organic structure of 
much of its business. 

" In coffee there is always adulteration. Sometimes 
it is better for the adulteration ;[?] but it was thought 
the adulteration of chicory was not bad enough, and 
roast peas or beans were added, and they took old 
ship-bread that had made a couple of voyages, and 
put it in. 

" How is it with wine ? I am not so familiar in that 
direction. But I hear rumors about it. How is it 
about all the products that come into the apothecary- 
shop ? I hear men say that lives are lost because of 
adulterations in drugs, and that patients break down 
because the chloroform was not what it professed to 
be, when used by the physician. Is cloth always what 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES. I 6 I 

it professes to be ? Is there no cheating in linen, in 
iron, in stone, or plaster, in painting, or in building ? 

" Mechanics have become debauched, and manufac- 
turers have become debauched. There is a principle 
of dishonesty, which is among themselves recognized, 
but they do not like to talk about it to others. It 
belongs, part and parcel, to the whole deterioration of 
the community when they want more than they 
render an equivalent for." — Lecture on Compulsory 
Education, by the Rev. H. W. Beeclier, New York, 
January 9, 1873. 

These curious phases of moral phenomena indicate 
errors of mental culture, rather than total depravity or 
original sin. They must necessarily follow the dispro- 
portionate exercise and development of the mental 
powers. The true remedy obviously consists in diver- 
sity of mental occupation, and in especially avoiding 
prolonged mental concentration on single objects and 
pursuits. 



CHAPTER V. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

The active cultivation of the moral powers is thus 
seen to be demanded by the highest considerations of 
a sound hygiene. Its importance has by no means 
been over-estimated by the advocates of revealed 
religion. Mistaken they may have been respecting 
the means and methods, objects and ends, rewards 
and compensations: but, if there be no sulphureous 
fires to guard against ; no angry Deity to propitiate ; 
no longer or shorter catechism to subscribe to ; or pen- 
ances to practice, oblations, genuflexions, or outward 
sacrifices to perform, as precedent to admission to a 
golden paradise, there is nevertheless a mind to culti- 
vate and strengthen, a soul to redeem from imperfec- 
tions, and a life to be harmonized in accordance with 
the eternal principles of goodness, purity, and truth. 
To this end, no less the considerations of physiology, it 
is necessary to cultivate the moral powers, and make 
use of certain moral agencies and methods. 

FAITH. 

I. Faith* is the most prominent of these powers. 

* Franklin was a great believer in faith. " I do not desire faith dimin- 
ished, nor would I desire to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more 
162 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. Y ^ 

The exercise of faith, faith in one's self, faith in God, 
the laws and principles of nature, the Divine govern- 
ment, the unseen and unknowable, is essential to 
genuine human progress. Saint Paul defines faith to 
be " the substance of things hoped for ; the evidence 
of things not seen."* Jesus acknowledged, as has been 
observed, that it was through the power of faith that he 
wrought his wonderful works among the people ; and 
he told his disciples that if they had sufficient faith 
nothing would be impossible unto them.f "According 
to your faith be it unto you," said he to the blind, the 
sick, the hungry, and the impoverished. By the power 
of faith the dead were raised, epileptics cured, water 
turned into wine, and a multitude of hungry people 
amply fed from five loaves of bread and two small 
fishes. And when he failed to perform these marvelous 
deeds, which sometimes was the case, the cause of 
the failure was justly ascribed to a want of faith: 
"And he did not many mighty works there [in his 
own country] because of their unbelief/'J 

It is a common error among rationalists to suppose 
that faith as an element of human nature is confined 
to the infancy of the race, and that with the general 
diffusion of knowledge there is an inevitable decline 
in the use and efficacy of that power. This is 



productive of good works than I have generally seen it ; I mean real good 
works, works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holy-day 
keeping, sermon-reading or hearing; performing church-ceremonies,- or 
making long prayers filled with flattering compliments, despised even by 
wise men, and much less pleasing to God. . . . But nowadays we 
have scarce a little parson that does not think it the duty of every man 
within his reach to sit under his petty ministrations, and that whoever omits 
them offends God." — Franklin's Memoirs and Private Correspondence, vol. iii. 
* Heb. xi. i. f Matt. xvii. 20. % Matt. xiii. 58. 



164 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

true only in so far as credulity is allied to the higher 
and diviner element of faith. "A man," says Emerson, 
" bears beliefs as a tree bears apples." In the higher 
and nobler sense, the power and influence of faith 
actually increase with knowledge. The scientific mind 
has a deeper sense of the miraculous than has that of 
the savage, for to the former all nature is one vast 
miracle. No phenomenon in nature is grander than 
the simple trust of the husbandman in sowing his 
seed, or of the manufacturer in anticipating and fore- 
stalling the material wants of the people ; or of the 
philosopher, in his confidence in the instruments and 
methods of science, by which a planet is weighed, a 
solar ray analyzed, or the chemical composition of 
the stellar universe determined upon.* The blind, 
unreasoning credulity of ignorance, which " sees God 
in the clouds and hears him in the wind," is surely 
a lower manifestation of faith than that which es- 
tablishes the " Signal Service," and determines before- 
hand the rise and course of rain and wind. Faith 
in " scapegoats," and the voice from Sinai, may 
be very beautiful in its way, but the faith in truth, 
and "the still, small voice" within, is a much finer ex- 
hibition of that element. The faith of Elijah, by 
which he was enabled to bring fire from heaven 
to consume wood and stone, and even to lick up 

* " 'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of 
chemistry, of botany, and so forth. Those laws do not stop when our 
eyes lose them, but push the same geometry and chemistry up into the 
invisible plane of social and rational life, so that, look where you will, in a 
boy's game, or in the strife of races, a perfect reaction, a perpetual judg- 
ment, keeps watch and ward. And this appears in a class of facts which 
concerns all men within and above their creeds." — Emerson' s Conduct of 
Life, p. 191. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



I6 5 



the dust and water, is less brilliant than that which 
enthused .Mr. Field to prosecute the Atlantic-cable 
project, or Franklin to seize upon the electric fire in 
the storm-cloud, and demonstrate its identity with 
electricity. Faith not only gives efficacy to prayer, 
and power to the cross, and converts beads and bap- 
tism, fasts and feasts, symbols and sacrifices, into 
spiritual agencies, f but it is the power behind civiliza- 
tion, the force which impels the cultivation of the arts 
and sciences, and inspires man to trust the unseen for 
blessings which he cannot foreknow, but for which 
he patiently labors and waits. Faith is the foundation 
of industry, and is illustrated no less in the coral, which 
patiently builds its reefs, or in the bee, which industri- 
ously secretes its wax and collects its honey, than in 
him who harvests the wisdom of the world and builds 
up its grand industries, religions, and philosophies. 

The power and influence of faith in religious epi- 
demics cannot have escaped the observation of any 
one. Among the ignorant or unscrupulous, it is a 
power, as we have observed in the previous chapter, 
as potent for mischief as typhus or " yellow jack." 
Its influence in medicine is well known to the profes- 
sion ; and it affords the quack or pretender a fruitful 
field in which to ply his art. In curing the sick it 
surely is often more potent than the best selected 
remedy ; and he is sometimes the most skillful who 
deigns not to take advantage of its kindly aid. The 
story of the blindfolded criminal, who was bled to 
death by feigned venesection, is a good illustration of 
the power of faith over the vital processes. And 
Paris, in his "Life of Sir Humphry Davy," relates a 
remarkable illustration of the curative power of faith, 



1 66 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

that came under the observation of Davy. A palsied 
man had been selected on whom it was proposed to 
try the effect of nitrous oxide. Previous to the trial 
of the gas, Sir Humphry placed a small thermometer 
in the mouth of the patient to ascertain the bodily 
temperature. The paralytic, wholly ignorant of the 
process to which he was about to be subjected, but 
having been deeply impressed " with the certainty of 
its success, no sooner felt the thermometer between 
his teeth than he concluded the talisman was in opera- 
tion, and, in a burst of enthusiasm, declared that he 
already experienced the effects of its benign influence 
throughout his whole body." The administration of 
the gas was accordingly deferred, and, in its stead, 
daily repetition of the experiment with the thermom- 
eter resorted to with the most gratifying results. 
"At the end of two weeks he was dismissed cured, — no 
remedy of any kind, except the thermometer, having 
ever been used."* 

Another remarkable instance of this power is 
quoted by Dr. Combe from Dr. Johnson, who in turn 
quotes it from F. V. Mye's " De Morbis et Sympto- 
matibus." At the siege of Buda in 1625, "when the 
garrison was on the point of surrendering from the 
ravages of scurvy, a few vials of sham-medicine, in- 
troduced by the Prince of Orange's orders, as a most 
valuable and infallible specific, and given in drops as 
such, produced astonishing effects : ' Such as had not 
moved their limbs for months before, were seen walk- 
ing in the streets, sound, straight, and whole ; and 
many, who declared they had been rendered worse by 



Paris's Life of Davy, p. 51. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



6 7 



all former remedies, recovered in a few days, to their 
inexpressible joy.' "* 

There can be no doubt but that much of the influ- 
ence of a popular physician is effected through the 
medium of this faculty ; as it is a notorious fact that 
the least learned practitioner is frequently the most 
successful physician. Baglivi has well said : " For a 
physician, powerful in speech and skilled in address- 
ing the feelings of a patient, adds so much to the 
power of his remedies, and excites so much confidence 
in his treatment, as frequently to overcome dangerous 
diseases with very feeble remedies, which more learned 
doctors, languid and indifferent in speech, could not 
have cured with the best remedies that man could 
produce."f 

CHEERFULNESS. 

2. "A laugh," says Lamb, "is worth a hundred 
groans in any market." The exercise of a hopeful, 
cheerful mood is another moral tonic of indispensable 
efficacy. It also influences the corporeal functions 
in a marked manner. Cheerfulness promotes the 
circulation, warms the hands and feet, and relieves 
congested lungs and livers. Laughter is its nat- 
ural language; and he who is incapable of a good 
hearty laugh is in danger of melancholia and a lunatic 
asylum. " Ten hearty laughs," says a popular writer, 
— "real shouts, — will do more to enhance the general 
health and vitality than an hour spent in the best 
gymnastic attitudes and motions, if done in a sober, 

* The Principles of Physiology, p. 273. j Ibid., p. 273. 



!63 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

solemn spirit." " Laugh and grow fat," is an old-time 
maxim, full of sound physiological sense. And 
Solomon was cognizant of its truth when he wrote : 
" A merry heart doeth good like a medicine : but a 
broken spirit drieth the bones ;" and again : " He 
that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast."* 
The opposite state of mind depresses the pulse, de- 
stroys appetite and digestion, poisons the secretions, 
and beclouds all the mental functions. " By sorrow 
of the heart the spirit is broken."f 

The cultivation of a hopeful state of mind is essential 
to good cheer; for no human being can otherwise be 
joyful under the dark clouds of despondency. A lively 
sentiment of hope leads one to look forward, and beyond 
present adversity, trials, and difficulties. Present de- 
feats and discomforts are but the necessary preludes, 
concomitants, to an ultimate success. Adversity is after 
all far more beneficent than prosperity; for without 
its shadows hope would cloy and inspiration die out 
from disuse. When clouds obscure the mental hori- 
zon, shutting out the glory of the perfect day, 'tis but 
temporary to the hopeful mind; and even then they 
have a silver lining; the soul is not enshrouded in 
utter darkness, nor left without some augury of hope 
and promise. Besides, the hopeful know that above 
the densest cloud the sun is always shining with un- 
diminished splendor; and he who is actuated by a 
proper degree of hope finds enough of light and sun- 
shine somewhere in the universe to enliven and vivify 
the darkest and most joyless day of earth. Campbell 
has well sung of hope: 

* Proverbs xvii. 22, xv. 15. f Proverbs xv. 13. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. I 6o / 

" Eternal hope ! when yonder spheres sublime 
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time, 
Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade — 
When all the sister planets have decayed : 
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, 
And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below ; 
Thou, undismayed, shall o'er the ruins smile, 
And light thy torch at nature's funeral pile."* 

TEMPERANCE. 

3. Temperance, as a law of the economy, is as ap- 
plicable to psychical as to corporeal indulgences. 
Every function has its natural limit, beyond which its 
exercise is productive of harm. " Be ye temperate in 
all things," said St. Paul. And that sage apostle of 
Christianity reckoned temperance among the " fruits 
of the Spirit." In this, its true sense, temperance is 
allied to prudence; and it should stand guard over 
every act, word, impulse, thought of our life. Tem- 
perance should be our mentor, ever at our side, 
prompting, checking, and guiding the tempestuous 
impulses and appetites of the heart and mind. Under 
its guidance, excesses in eating and drinking will be 
avoided ; the passions trained and kept within their 
proper sphere and limit of activity; unchastity re- 
pressed; the emotions of the heart carefully guarded 
against abuse and undue influence in the character; 
the various exercises and labors of the intellect con- 
fined within equitable limits ; and the indulgence of 
religious rites and ceremonies, fastings, prayers, 
penances, oblations, reflections, with the accompany- 
ing depressing emotions, carefully guarded against 
unhappy and disastrous excesses. 

* The Pleasures of Hope. 
15* 



i;o 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



Excess of piety has its evils, no less riotous living 
or immoral conduct. I knew a man who spent most 
of his time in prayer. He thought he was serving 
God. If he were, God surely did not requite the ser- 
vice, for he was soon taken to a lunatic asylum and his 
family sent to the county-house. Serving the devil 
could not have been more disastrous to either his family 
or himself. Excess of prayer, then, as excess of any 
other special function of the mind, is positively sinful 
and demoralizing, since it not only leads to mental 
perversion, if not absolute lunacy, but robs the other 
mental gifts of their saving qualities. The wise man 
said there was "a time for everything." Temperance 
says, Let everything have its own time. Thus shall 
the divine in man be unfolded, and human nature 
fulfil its bounteous, glorious destiny ! 

MUSIC. 

4. The influence of music on the mind and vital 
functions is scarcely second to that of cheerfulness. 
The emotions it excites in the mind are among the 
most pleasing and salutary. This, indeed, would be 
inferred from the general good health and long life 
which usually obtains among the lovers of the art, 
and especially among the masters in the musical pro- 
fession. Music is a medicinal agent of very great 
efficacy in certain diseases. Dr. Rush advises it in 
many forms of madness.* It elevates, calms, and 
soothes the emotions, and promotes vigor and har- 
mony of the corporeal functions. A high order of 
musical culture is incompatible with any considerable 

* The Diseases of the Mind. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



171 



degree of immorality ; and its cultivation must be 
regarded as prophylactic to the lawless and groveling 
tendency in human nature. Shakspeare has de- 
nounced those who are insensible to the charms of 
music as only "fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils." 
" Vocal music," says Mr. Graham, " ought to be 
as universal a branch of education as reading and 
writing, and instrumental music should be almost as 
extensively cultivated." He regards the practice of 
music and dancing, and the social enjoyment founded 
on them, as " more favorable to good health, sound 
morality, and true religion, than perhaps any other 
known in society." And he very sensibly adds :* 
"If music, marching, and dancing constituted a part 
of the regular exercises of all our colleges, theological 
seminaries, and other literary and scientific institu- 
tions, immense benefits would result not only to those 
institutions but to society at large. Thousands who 
now pass from the place of learning to years of 
misery and an untimely grave could be preserved in 
health, and live to be blessed and to bless mankind by 
their usefulness." 

ART. 

5. The study of the fine arts in general is particularly 
elevating in its tendency. Aside from music, there 
are drawing, painting, engraving, sculpture, etc., the 
cultivation of which draws the mind away from self 
and selfish gratification to the study and contempla- 
tion of the wonderful works and processes of nature. 
In vain is urged the excuse of a want of time and 

* The Science of Human Life, sees. 1626-7. 



172 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



opportunity. It is the will, alone that is wanting. 
The time which men devote to the vulgar gossip of 
the lager beer saloon, or idle away over the fragrant 
Havana, and which women waste over their morning 
and evening toilette, or spend in answering the de- 
mands of a formal and frivolous etiquette, is quite 
sufficient in either sex to acquire proficiency in any of 
those beautiful and soul-inspiring accomplishments. 
The enjoyment afforded by their cultivation, and the 
ennobling impetus they give to the mental energies, 
are ample rewards for the time devoted to them. 



LANGUAGE AND CONVERSATION. 

6. The study of language and conversation occupies 
no inferior place in mental culture. " Language," says 
Coleridge, " is the armory of the human mind, and at 
once contains the trophies of its past and the weapon 
of its future conquests." Language deserves a high 
place among the fine arts. It comprehends both 
science and art, — science in the arrangement of words 
and sentences ; art in the skill of speech and expres- 
sion. Conversation, however, while comprehending 
both, is something different from either. To converse 
in an entertaining manner requires a thoroughly dis- 
ciplined mind. There must be a high order of intel- 
lect; an accurate, well-stored memory; imagination; 
wit; the moral graces, — politeness, affability, good 
humor, etc. ; a combination of mental qualities by no 
means common. The art of communicating, in articu- 
late speech, the thoughts and feelings with precision, 
fluency, and elegance, is an accomplishment worthy 
man's best efforts to acquire. Its possession advances 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



173 



one to the first rank in civilized society. Madame 
Recamier has left to the world an enduring renown 
by her wonderful powers of conversation alone. The 
art is one of the noblest of which human nature is 
susceptible ; its cultivation a duty which cannot be too 
forcibly enjoined upon the young. If our institutions 
of learning would teach language less and conversa- 
tion more, they would supply more fully the wants of 
society and of civilization. " Many persons," says Bron- 
son, " take great pains with their dress, to appear well 
and attract attention ; but if they would cultivate their 
language, and the proper way of using it, so as not to 
deform themselves in reading and conversation, they 
might accomplish the object at which they aim." 

LITERATURE. 

7. The study of literature affords one of the most 
effective means of engaging mental energies that 
might otherwise run to waste, or spend themselves in 
an unwholesome or demoralizing direction. It is a 
better antidote for sorrow or disappointment than 
alcohol or opium. The field it opens up to the mind 
is ample for the exercise of the largest capacity and 
of the rarest gifts ; and some of our most distinguished 
writers have cultivated it as an effective solace for an 
incurable grief. If it be impracticable to avail one's self 
of the mental discipline which methodical composi- 
tion affords, a salutary diversion of the mind may be 
found in the study of the writings of the masters. 
These are 'works of nature, be it remembered, in the 
purest and highest forms ; and in their study and con- 
templation the noblest aspirations of the mind find 



174 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



gratification and delight. Intimate converse with 
these, the best thoughts of poets, philosophers, essay- 
ists, and novelists, brings the soul into as close a com- 
munion with the divine mind as it is possible for a 
mortal being to be brought on earth. 

The mental character is largely influenced by asso- 
ciation. Consciously or unconsciously the ideas, 
opinions, and feelings of favorite authors are assimi- 
lated and become a part of us. So true is this, in 
general, that the quality of the literature given the 
child largely determines the character of the man. 
To him who reads much, the influence of books is 
more potent than that of companions. If one is 
known by the company he keeps, surely the books he 
reads furnish a far more reliable key to his character. 
This fact was early recognized by the fathers in the 
Christian church ; and so long as the authority of the 
church was supreme over the conscience of the people, 
it continued to exercise a most vigilant surveillance 
upon literature, and to suppress with a strong, relentless 
hand whatever, in its judgment, was prejudicial to the 
church and the highest interests of mankind. If this 
ungenerous restriction upon literature had not been 
removed, the dark ages would have continued in- 
definitely, and mankind divided into patron saints and 
contemned heretics. 

The church did not over-estimate the influence of 
literature. It did over-estimate its own privileges, 
sagacity, wisdom, and failed, signally, in the interpreta- 
tion and rightful use of them. It is desirable of course 
that the young should be carefully guarded against the 
influence of impure and unchaste publications. Books 
and periodicals inculcating a healthy sentiment, cheer- 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



75 



fulness, good humor, and a wholesome morality, 
should be selected for children, of a style, in other 
respects, in keeping with their years and peculi- 
arities of taste. Further than this it is unwise to go. 
The young mind should be permitted to develop ab- 
solutely untrammeled in respect to opinions concerning 
politics, religion, philosophy, etc. Maturity would 
find such a person comparatively free from bias or 
prejudice, with a judgment more impartial respecting 
the merits and demerits of the conflicting and opposing 
systems of religion and philosophy, and a higher 
love, respect, and perception of truth -and right. The 
grand desideratum in training the young mind is to 
teach it how to think, rather than what to think ; to 
develop ideas, rather than opinions. Fools have a 
plethora of opinions ; the wise, of ideas and judgment. 
If I were to express an opinion in regard to the 
comparative usefulness of the various kinds of light 
literature, it would be in favor of biography. " It is 
the life of a man," says Bulwer, " that it does good to 
manhood itself to contemplate."* Example is stronger 
than precept; and no one, be his age and circum- 
stances what they may, can read the record of a noble 
life and not be inspired by it to nobler effort in his own 
behalf. Such lives are full of lessons of useful ex- 
perience; patient industry; moral courage in defeat, 
privation, and misfortune ; honor, virtue, magnanimity, 
etc., with the accompanying rewards and compensa- 
tions. Nothing in story awakens in the youthful mind 
a livelier enthusiasm to be, to do, and to dare in like 
manner. This is the true office and purpose of all 

* The Caxtons. 



!^6 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

biography worthy a place in literature ; and, surely, 
none other deserves a place in our regard and memory. 
The scientific interest of biography, psychologically 
considered, can hardly be overrated. "As the business 
of a man in the world is action of some kind," says 
Maudsley, " and as his action undoubtedly results 
from the relations between him and his surroundings, 
it is plain that biography, which estimates both 
the individual and his circumstances, and displays 
their reactions, can alone give adequate account 
of the man. What was the mortal's force of charac- 
ter, what was the force of circumstances, how he 
struggled with them, and how he was affected by 
them, — what was the life -product under the par- 
ticular conditions of its evolution ? these are the 
questions which a good biography aspires to answer. 
It regards man as a concrete being ; acknowledges 
the difference between men in characters and capabili- 
ties, recognizes the helpful or baneful influence of 
surroundings, and patiently unfolds the texture of 
life as the inevitable result of the elements out of 
which, and the conditions under which, it has been 
worked. It is, in fact, the application of positive 
science to human life, and the necessary consequence 
of the progress of the inductive philosophy [method]. 
No marvel then that biography forms so large a part 
of the literature of the day; and that novels, its more 
or less faithful mirrors, are in so great request. The 
instincts of mankind are here, as heretofore, in advance 
of systematic knowledge or method."* 

* Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, pp. 8-9. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



LOVE. 



177 



8. " Nothing," says Home, " more excites to every- 
thing noble and generous than virtuous love." Love, 
in its highest and noblest form, is a genuine inspi- 
ration to all that is noble and ennobling in human 
life. It enlivens all the emotions, and warms and 
cheers and strengthens the heart, when all the other 
sentiments are powerless or inoperative. " Love," 
said Petrarch, " is the crowning of grace and humanity ; 
the holiest right of the soul ; the golden link which 
binds us to duty and truth ; the redeeming principle 
that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic 
of eternal good." Love is the essence of religion. Its 
fullness and perfection escape the ken of groveling 
mortals, and are only revealed to the noble and self- 
sacrificing. "Take away love, and not physical nature 
only, but the heart of the moral world, would be pal- 
sied," says Southey. And Terence has observed, that 
" it is possible that a man can be so changed by love 
that one cannot recognize him to be the same person." 
The elevating and transforming influence of sincere 
affection for all that is good and beautiful in woman 
may be observed on every hand, and amply justifies 
its classification among the agents of moral hygiene; 
for its existence is as essential to the beauty and 
comeliness of body and mind as it is to the perfection 
of the heart and soul. 

In sentiment, a pure love is allied to worship. 
Cowley has given noble utterance to this phase of 
love in these lines to his love: 

" Thou robb'st my days of business and delights ; 
Of sleep thou robb'st my nights. 
16 



iyg MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

Ah, lovely thief, what wilt thou do ? 
What! rob me of my heaven, too? 
Thou even my prayers dost steal from me, 
And I, with wild idolatry, 
Begin to God and end them all to thee." 

No one capable of sustaining an affection of this 
order can be wholly bad. Indeed, there is no room 
for unworthy emotions and desires in a heart thor- 
oughly imbued with an exalted love for a superior 
being. Every consideration of interest, duty, honor, 
fidelity, etc., conspire to lift such a one above the low 
plane of mean and groveling temptation, to an atmos- 
phere of purity, goodness, and truthfulness. Love 
is, truly, " the fulfilling of the law," and one of the 
finest inspirations and needs of every noble heart. No 
considerable degree of health, happiness, or mental 
balance is possible without its active cultivation. 
Neglect to cultivate the sentiment is parent of many 
of the bodily and mental evils, and swells the tide of 
human wretchedness which afflicts mankind. As the 
moral influence of this passion is considered at some 
length in the following chapter, I forbear to give it 
here more than this passing reference. 

FRIENDSHIP. 

9. The cultivation of friendship adds largely to the 
sum of regenerating influences. The affection which 
sometimes springs up between individuals of congenial 
tastes and temperaments, and denominated friendship, 
is but another form of love. Its influence upon the 
character, when pure and unselfish, is elevating and 
ennobling, imparting joys and quickening emotions 
peculiarly its own. " Beautiful and noble characters." 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



179 



says Mr. Alger,* " can find nothing so enchanting as 
a beautiful and noble character." In the relation of 
two or more persons, between whom the strong tie of 
an unselfish friendship exists, may be found in active 
operation the diviner elements of human nature. Each 
forgets himself in promoting the welfare of the others. 
They live for each other's good; and in doing so they 
all reap the benefits which accrue as the lasting reward 
of the exercise of disinterested purposes. Surely no 
pleasure is equal to that we receive in giving plea- 
sure to others. f To many persons, friendship is a 
moral necessity ; life would be unbearable without its 
genial, vivifying influence. " I cannot be happy," 
says De Tocqueville, " or even calm, unless I meet 
with the sympathy and encouragement of some of my 
fellow-creatures." Society is indeed made for man; 
and he who seeks seclusion, draws away from his fel- 
low-creatures, and refuses to seek in others what he 
can never, unaided, find in himself, curtails his joys, 
and dries up some of the most prolific fountains 
of life and energy. Friendship is among the most 
prominent of these living fountains; "since the very 
ground and gist of a noble friendship is the cultivation 
in common of the personal inner lives of those who 
partake in it, their mutual reflection of souls and just 
sharing of experience inciting them to a constant 
betterment of their being and their happiness."J All 
the loves of the heart are, in truth, when exercised on 
worthy objects, as companions, friends, children, good- 



* The Friendships of Women. 

f " It should never be forgotten that the most delicate and endurim 
pleasures we enjoy are those we give." — W. R. Alger. 
X The Friendships of Women, p. 10. 



I So MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

ness, beauty, etc., in an active degree health-promoting 
and spiritually elevating in their tendency. 

SOCIETY. 

10. Society affords the individual another resource 
of health, corporeal and mental. " It is not good for 
man to be alone," says the allegory of creation ; and 
it is as true to-day as it was in the beginning. The 
hermit, or recluse, in withdrawing himself from the 
society of his fellow-creatures, is deprived of many of 
the finer stimuli which are necessary to the full and 
complete unfolding of the moral character. It is im- 
possible for a human soul, with its varied and complex 
powers and susceptibilities, to thrive in a condition of 
isolation. Man is as truly dependent on his fellows 
for approval and sympathy as are the flowers on the 
dews and sunbeams for life and beauty. Active par- 
ticipation in the various interests and business of life 
gives zest and healthful activity to powers which 
would otherwise run to waste, or worse than waste — 
to disease. Moreover, it is indispensable to the cure 
of the numerous ills and misfortunes which arise, 
in good part, from having nothing to do, — of those 
diseases whose very existence — we may say essence 
— is perversion of the imagination, and which is 
manifested in the indulgence of fancied wrongs and 
grievances, brooding in solitude over griefs and disap- 
pointments, the embers of which are kept alive by the 
morbid murmurings of the patient's own isolated 
heart. No wrongs are so hard to redress as fancied 
wrongs; no diseases so difficult to cure as those of 
the imagination. Doctors and priests, with physic and 
litany, swarm around these patients and grow fat with 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUE 




the pickings, giving never so much as a wbrd, oi 
or intimation to indicate the comprehension of the 
causes, or a rational method for their removal ! The 
true specific for such woes is society, and an active sym- 
pathy and co-operation in society's work and recfes^ 
tion. Society is nature's great moral laboratory, 
moral workshop, where every soul may find congenial 
work and an ample opportunity to exercise and de- 
velop every gift with which it has been wisely endowed. 
" To complain that life has no joys," says Fitzosborne, 
"while there is a single creature whom we can relieve 
by our bounty, assist by our counsels, or enliven by our 
presence, is to lament the loss of that which we pos- 
sess; and is just as irrational as to die of thirst with 
the cup in our hands." 

INDUSTRY. 

1 1. Industry is by no means least among the agents 
of mental hygiene. " An idle brain is the devil's work- 
shop," some one has pertinently said. He who has 
nothing to do, nothing to enlist the energy of arm or 
brain, is a prey to more devils than Christian theology 
has the credit of inventing. "A busy man is troubled 
with but one devil, but the idle man with a thousand," 
says an old proverb. And another still more trite 
says : " Men are usually tempted by the devil, but an 
idle man positively tempts the devil." Dr. Todd, 
writing for students, observes : " There is no state so 
bad for the student as idleness, and no habit so per- 
nicious. And yet none is more easily acquired or so 
difficult to be thrown off. The idle man soon grows 
torpid, and becomes the Indian in his feelings, insensi- 
bly adopting their maxim : ' It is better to walk than 

1 6* 



!82 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

to run, and better to stand still than to walk, and 
better to sit than to stand, and better to lie down than 
to sit' Probably the man who deserves the most of 
pity is he who is the most idle ; for, as ' there are said 
to be pleasures to madness known only to madmen, 
there are certainly miseries in idleness which only the 
idle can conceive.' "* 

" Every man's task is his life preserver," says 
Emerson. Industry is a greater educator and disci- 
plinarian of one's faculties than the common school 
or Christian pulpit. Its influence upon the character 
is twofold. First : It is the means of vitalizing the 
blood and of exciting nutrition, growth, and energy 
in the economy, without which great excellence in 
any direction is unattainable. Second : It gives em- 
ployment, wholesome and elevating, to energies which 
are liable to be diverted into vitiating channels. In- 
dustry, in effect, puts morbid impulses into harness, 
and compels them to work in the interest of God and 
humanity. Industry is but another name for virtue, 
probity, honor. The percentage of crime is very small 
among the working population ; not that they are 
any better by nature than the rest of mankind, but 
because their wayward and mischievous impulses are 
consumed in their work, are correlated into virtuous 
toil — into industry. 

w 
POVERTY. 

12. Poverty is the usual incentive to industry; and 
it would be more philosophical perhaps to speak of 
it as a condition rather than an agent. I have already 

* Student's Manual, p. 54. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



I8 3 



referred to the incompatibility of superior morality and 
great affluence. Every man born in poverty has great 
reason for thankfulness ; for poverty means both incen- 
tive and opportunity. " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread," says the fable ; and what was meant 
as a curse man has turned into a blessing in every de- 
partment, and in every field of human endeavor. " It 
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," 
said Christ, "than for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of God." " Necessity is the mother of in- 
vention :" man is so constituted that but for the stimu- 
lus of poverty to impel him to exertion, he would, in 
most cases, sink into physical and moral apathy. 
" Steep and craggy is the path of the gods," said 
Porphyry. "Take it for granted," says Wirt, "that 
there is no excellence without great labor;" and the 
excellence which attends great labor would never be 
forthcoming were it not for the wise disposition of 
nature and circumstance, which compels every man 
worthy the name of man to help himself. 

Moreover, affluence is morally certain to breed in- 
dolence; to encourage the growth of selfishness; to 
remove one from the moral school of suffering and 
privation ; and to render one oblivious of duty and 
obligation. He who has never known poverty and 
privation is rarely capable of fully sympathizing with 
the vast majority of God's creatures ; and that is a 
misfortune, compared with which the mere absence of 
material wealth is insignificant indeed. " I have known 
many rich people in my time," writes Miss Mitford,* 
" and the result has convinced me that with great wealth 

* Field's Yesterdays with Authors. 



184 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

some deep black shadow is as sure to walk as it is 
to follow the bright sunshine. So I never pray for 
more than the blessed enough for those whom I love 
best." Surely, the evils of riches and the blessings 
of poverty are too manifest to require in this place 
more than this passing reference. Wealth would be 
shorn of much of its baleful influence if it came as 
the reward of personal industry; indeed it is, when 
otherwise obtained, more often a positive injury and 
misfortune.* 

PRAYER. 

13. Prayer is one of the chief elements of religious 
exercises,! and a valuable specific in mental hygiene. 
I am aware that it is unusual to class the exercise of 
prayer among the hygienic agents ; but that indicates 
an incomprehensive philosophy of health and life 
rather than a disbelief in the moral and hygienic 
efficacy of that exercise. 

The desire to pray; to supplicate the Supreme 
Being; to lift the soul, with all its cares and wants to 
him, is alone peculiar to man. It is an instinctive 
recognition of our dependent condition and complete 
subjection to powers unseen and superior to our own. 
In prosperity, freedom from disease and pestilence, 
with a sufficiency of this world's goods to supply his 
wants and those of his household, man is too often 
indifferent to this spiritual need. In adversity, how- 

* " He who aims high must dread an easy home and popular manners. 
Heaven sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and 
odium, as the bur that protects the fruit. If there is any great and good 
thing in store for you, it will not come at the first or the second call, nor in 
the shape of fashion, ease, and city drawing-rooms." — Emerson on Culture. 

f " Prayer and religion are one and inseparable." — Hod^e. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



I8 5 



ever, the most irreverent and unreflecting are not un- 
frequently the first to find a ready resource in prayer. 
It is usually the first exhibition of cowardice in ca- 
lamity, for which perverse people are distinguished. 

The faculty in which the sense of prayer and obli- 
gation originates is in the cerebrum, and is the highest 
development of the moral brain. It gives strength of 
moral character ; elevation of mind ; a reverent and 
respectful demeanor; calm submission to the inevita- 
ble, as if it were the clear will of Deity ; a patient, 
trustful disposition ; an adoring, worshipful state of 
mind ; the desire, so strong in all very good people and 
some very bad ones, to hold silent and peaceful con- 
verse and communion with the spirit ; and that ad- 
mirable quality of mind which distinguishes the 
noblest specimens of human nature, viz., moral cour- 
age. Through this faculty man is made acquainted 
with the existence of his Maker and the spiritual rela- 
tion which he sustains to him. An individual in 
whom the faculty predominates feels the reality of 
that relation without the aid of reason, and in spite of 
all the adverse deductions of reason. It is the inspira- 
tion of an innate sense, a consciousness which needs 
no demonstration ; which, in fact, is above outward 
demonstration, just as any self-evident fact in nature, 
our existence for example, is above demonstration, 
and must be received on the evidence of the senses 
alone. 

Prayer is the natural language of this noble and 
elevating faculty, the legitimate exercise of a beauti- 
ful and sublime gift. Pope has given grand utterance 
to the spirit of prayer in his " Universal Prayer" : 



1 86 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



" Thou Great First Cause, least understood, 
Who all my sense confined 
To know but this, that thou art good, 
And that myself am blind; 



" What conscience dictates to be done, 
Or warns me not to do, 
This, teach me more than hell to shun, 

That, more than heaven pursue. 
****** 

" Teach me to feel another's woe, 
To hide the fault I see : 
That mercy I to others show, 
That mercy show to me." 

Prayer may not always find expression in words, — 
these are sometimes too feeble to express the soul's 
inner longing for goodness and purity, for God. The 
most eloquent supplications may be voiceless, and in- 
dicated in the soul's absolute trust and confidence in 
the Supreme, as if to say, "Thy will be done." 

The influence of this element upon the functions of 
organic life can hardly be over-estimated. It is a 
power in recovering from disease. It is also a poten- 
tial prophylactic against the inception and cause of 
disease. The calm faith and trust and fortitude it in- 
spires in the mind of its possessor are often more 
potent in serious maladies than the most discreet 
medication. It guards one against unhappy and de- 
structive emotions ; it restrains the exercise of the pas- 
sions ; soothes the selfish propensities ; and balances, 
harmonizes, and invigorates the nervous functions in 
general. The power of fervent supplication is so 
obvious in this respect, and frequently so immediately 
manifest as to give rise to the belief of a direct inter- 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



I8 7 



position of Deity in answer to prayer, — a belief most 
difficult to eradicate from the mind of a pious but 
illogical individual, since reason in such people is 
always inferior to inspiration. Let the modus operandi 
of its influence on man, however, be what it may, its 
exercise and cultivation are demanded by the highest 
considerations of physiology and mental hygiene. The 
perfection of mental health and manhood is obviously 
otherwise impossible.* 

The philosophy of prayer, as viewed from the 
physiological stand-point, is so thoroughly consistent 
with sound sense that it commends itself to the mind 
of every rational or unprejudiced individual, be he 
believer or skeptic. "Ask, and it shall be given unto 
you," said Christ. Sincere, earnest prayer brings up 
from the depths within spiritual comfort and consola- 
tion, and many other spiritual blessings which the 
Father knows the soul has most need of. "Ask, and 
ye shall receive," is the requisite condition, and by 
complying with it the heart receives the needed 
good, in strict conformity to the laws of the organic 
processes. 



* "Whoever believes in the existence of God should consider religion 
as the most important object of his reflections ; and being personally con- 
cerned in this respect, his union with God should be left free from human 
authority, particularly from the spirit of those who have seized upon it as 
their particular property." — Spurzheim s Phrenology, vol. ii. p. 101. 

" The man who cultivates his intellect and habitually obeys the precepts 
of Christianity will enjoy within himself a fountain of moral and intellectual 
happiness, which is the appropriate reward of that obedience. By these 
means he will be rendered more capable of studying, comprehending, and 
obeying the physical and organic laws, of placing himself in harmony with 
the whole order of creation, and of attaining the highest degree of perfec- 
tion, and reaping the highest degree of happiness, of which human nature 
in this world is susceptible." — Combe s Constitution of Man, p. 23. 



188 MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 

We do not pretend that this brief explanation of the 
modus operandi of prayer is consistent with the Bible 
view of human supplication. Indeed, the Bible dis- 
tinctly teaches, what all believers in the literal inter- 
pretation of Scripture claim, and what the Christian 
churches universally adopt, that "all things what- 
soever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 
And again said Christ, even more emphatic: "if two 
of you shall agree on earth as touching anything 
they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my 
Father which is in heaven." The prayer of Christ is 
said to have raised the dead, to have restored sight to 
the blind, health to the diseased, and, in several re- 
markable instances, to have arrested the laws of or- 
ganic nature. And he promised his disciples that they 
should by similar means do even more marvelous 
works than these. The prediction seems to have been 
verified. In several instances the apostles are said to 
have healed the sick and raised the dead ; and when 
Peter was in prison the prayers of the church unbarred 
his doors, etc. In the Old Testament the efficacy of 
prayer is attested in the arrest of the heavenly bodies, 
the production and dissipation of plagues and pesti- 
lence ; in bringing down fire from heaven, suspending 
the ordinary course and procession of meteorological 
events, wresting victories in war, abating famine, etc. 
The Christian of to-day is exceedingly jealous of his 
influence with Deity in shaping the destiny of nature 
and human life. In drought, he prays for showers 
and the harvests; if disease and disaster threaten, he 
implores heaven to stay them ; he invokes divine aid* 



* See note at end of chapter. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. jgg 

in his x profession; when engaged in war, he prays for 
victory — for the side he espouses, of course. And 
in our late civil war it was not uncommon to see 
both parties to the strife kneeling at the shrine of 
prayer, imploring divine favor for victory over the 
other. Nor is the Christian content to confine the 
exercise of his influence with the Deity to extraor- 
dinary occasions only. His voice is raised for kings, 
queens, presidents, "and all others in authority" ; for 
the sick and the afflicted, the poor and the rich ; in 
brief, "for all sorts and conditions of men," — thus 
maintaining in form the extravagant pretensions of the 
early Christians and the heathens in general respect- 
ing the power and efficacy of prayer, and the absolute 
subjection of the material to the spiritual. 

It is needless to observe that these extravagant 
claims respecting the influence of certain praying men 
over the divine mind are exceedingly impious. It 
exhibits among us the last stage of a decaying super- 
stition. Being at variance with rational philosophy, 
the belief has been chiefly instrumental in unfortu- 
nately arraying science against religion, and has also 
been one of the principal causes of divisions and dis- 
sensions in the church itself. In Scotland, for example, 
in 1744, Rev. William Leechman, D.D., Principal and 
Professor of Divinity in the college of Glasgow, was 
prosecuted by the presbytery of that city for alleged 
heresy, in preaching doctrines concerning prayer at 
variance with those entertained by the church. He 
was condemned by the presbytery; but on appeal to 
the synod, that body strangely " found no reason to 
charge the said professor with any unsoundness in 
the faith," etc. " Since this decision," says Mr. George 

17 



190 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



Combe, " the views delivered by Professor Leechman 
have been unhesitatingly taught by Scotch divines."* 
It is interesting to observe that the views referred to 
comprehend the philosophy of prayer herein briefly 
expressed. " God is not subject," said the learned 
doctor in the sermon complained of, "to those sudden 
passions and emotions of mind which we feel ; nor 
to any change of his measures and conduct by their 
influence ; he is not wrought upon and changed by 
our prayers ; for with him there is no variableness nor 
shadozv of turning. Prayer only works its effect upon 
tis, as it contributes to change the temper of our 
minds, to beget or improve right dispositions in 
them, to lay them open to the impressions of spiritual 
objects, and thus qualify us for receiving the favor 
and approbation of our Maker, and all those assist- 
ances which he has promised to those who call upon 
him in sincerity and in truth. The efficacy of prayer 
does not lie in the mere asking, but in its being the 
means of producing that frame of mind which qualifies 
us to receive."f 

The Rev. Dr. Blair, of Scotland, another distin- 
guished clergyman and author also, and a con- 
temporary of Dr. Leechman, in a sermon " On the 
Unchangeableness of the Divine Nature," announced, 
substantially, the same doctrine. " To what purpose, it 
may be urged, is homage addressed to a Being whose 
purpose is unalterably fixed; to whom ourrigliteousncss 
extendctJi not ; whom by no arguments we can per- 



* The Constitution of Man, p. 375. 

f Dr. Leechman's Sermons, London, 1789. Sermon iii. p. 192. Ibid. 
P- 374- 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



IGJ 



suade, and by no supplications we can modify? The 
objection would have weight if our religious addresses 
were designed to work any alteration on God ; either 
by giving him information of what he did not know, or 
by exciting affections which he did not possess; or by 
inducing him to change measures which he had pre- 
viously formed. But they are crude and imperfect 
notions of religion which can suggest such ideas. 
The change which our religious devotions are intended 
to make is upon ourselves, not upon the Almighty. 
Their chief efficacy is derived from the good disposi- 
tions which they raise and cherish in the human soul. 
By pouring out pious sentiments and desires before 
God, by adoring his perfection and confessing our 
own unworthiness, by expressing our dependence on 
his aid, our gratitude for his past favors, our submis- 
sion to his present will, our trust in his future mercy, 
we cultivate such affections as suit our place and sta- 
tion in the universe, and are thereby prepared for be- 
coming objects of the divine grace."* 

Lord Karnes, who, although a philosopher, was by 
no means a skeptic, advanced views respecting the 
philosophy of prayer in all respects similar: "The 
Being that made the world governs it by laws that 
are inflexible, because they are the best; and to 
imagine that he can be moved by prayers, oblations, 
or sacrifices, to vary his plan of government, is an 
impious thought, degrading the Deity to a level with 

ourselves. "f 

These doctrines concerning the nature and offices 



* Sermons, vol. ii. Ibid., p. 375. 

f Sketches, b. hi., Sketch 3, chapter hi. | 1. Ibid., p. 376. 



192 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



of prayer are identical with those held by the philoso- 
phers and reformed churchmen of to-day. They are 
thoroughly consistent with the reign of law and order 
in the universe, as opposed to arbitrary despotism and 
meddlesome interposition ; the only ones consistent 
with supreme dignity and wisdom, and the best in- 
terests of human nature ; for if man could have all 
things for the asking, the stimulus to exertion, except 
to pray, — to the answering our own prayers, — would 
be removed, and the end of industry would conse- 
quently be near. What the mind is most in need of 
from the influence of prayer, says Mr. O. B. Frothing- 
ham, " is balance, poise, serenity ; the sense of rest 
in infinite powers ; of repose on divine realities. It 
is the highest office of prayer to console and tranquil- 
ize the mind so that its waves of passion will subside 
on the bosom of the eternal deep."* 

These doctrines, it is objected, are unscriptural : 
undoubtedly. So much the worse is it for Scripture, 
or scriptural interpretation, or both. The truth of 
heaven is superior to prejudice, tradition, or Scripture; 
and when these conflict with it, they must either bend 
or break. And reason is the supreme umpire, arbiter, 
before whom the difference is to be adjudged. "Rea- 
son can, and ought to judge," says the learned Bishop 
Butler, "not only of the meaning, but also of the 
morality and evidence of revelation. "f And again : 
" Let reason be kept to ; and if any part of our 
scriptural account of the redemption of the world by 
Christ can be shown to be really contrary to it, let the 



* The Scientific Aspects of Prayer — a Sermon, p. 21. 
f Analogy, Part ii., chapter iii. p. 229. Bonn's edition. 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



193 



Scriptures, in the name of God, be given up."* The 
exercise of such a spirit would put an end forever to 
the unnatural antagonism which has been so mis- 
takenly maintained between science and religion, the 
material and the spiritual.f 



Note.— Page 188. 

The very able and distinguished author of " Study 
of Medicine," Dr. John Mason Good, left among his 
private papers the following beautiful prayer written 
out, which he was in the habit of repeating every 
morning before proceeding to engage in the exercise 
of his profession. It is printed in the last edition of 
his great work, " The Study of Medicine." The 
prayer and the example are both too noble to be 
buried in the oblivion of an obsolete work. I accord- 
ingly reproduce them here : 

" O thou great Bestower of health, strength, and 
comfort! grant thy blessing upon the professional 



* Analogy, Part ii., chapter iv. p. 256. 

f Many years ago, the writer was once engaged in a public discus- 
sion of a question involving the scope of reason in human affairs. In the 
course of the debate, when his turn came to speak, he made bold to quote 
these and other extracts from Bishop Butler's "Analogy," presuming that 
an authority so distinguished as that learned divine would be of some im- 
portance in deciding in his favor the question at issue. When he had 
concluded, to his surprise and disgust, an orthodox clergyman arose, and 
with great solemnity and earnestness of manner declared that Butler's 
" Analogy" was one of his text-books; and that he was very glad to be 
able to say that no passages such as the gentleman had quoted were in it ! 
Not having the book within reach, the writer was compelled to rest under 
the odium of perverting the bishop's language in the interest of his argu- 
ment ! Nor was it an easy rest. 

17* • 



i 9 4 



MORAL AGENTS AND INFLUENCES. 



duties in which I may this day engage. Give me 
judgment to discern disease, and skill to treat it; and 
crown with thy favor the means that may be devised 
for recovery ; for, with thine assistance, the humblest 
instrument may succeed ; as, without it, the ablest 
must prove unavailing. 

"Save me from all sordid motives; and endow me 
with a spirit of pity and liberality towards the poor, 
and of tenderness and sympathy towards all: that I 
may enter into the various feelings by which they are 
respectively tried; may weep with those that weep, 
and rejoice with those that rejoice. 

" And sanctify thou their souls, as well as heal their 
bodies. Let faith and patience, and every Christian 
virtue they are called upon to exercise, have their per- 
fect work : so that, in the gracious dealings of thy 
Spirit and of thy providence, they may find in the 
end, whatever that end may be, that it has been good 
for them to have been afflicted. 

" Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the love of that 
adorable Redeemer who, while on earth, went about 
doing good, and now ever liveth to make intercession 
for us in heaven. Amen." 



CHAPTER VI. 

MARRIAGE. 

" It is in the need of loving and of being loved that the highest instincts of 
our nature are first revealed." — Henry Thomas Buckle. 

True marriage is the complete evolution of con- 
jugal love. Love may subsist without marriage, but 
no true marriage is possible without love. In thus 
distinguishing at the outset between true and false mar- 
riage, I do but conform to the average comprehension 
of the subject. The terms have crept into its nomen- 
clature unbidden, and been received by many with 
unfeigned reluctance, and yet with a persuasion before 
which all doctrinal myths were as vapor before the 
rising sun. 

The union contemplated in marriage finds its war- 
rant and necessity in man's mental constitution. It 
exists independent of reason or expediency, and com- 
prehends both in the orderly appointment of the family. 
No man reaches the fullness of manhood without mar- 
riage; and no woman attains the glory of womanhood 
unchastened by its divine influence. Wedded love, in 
its highest form, is the perfection of the divine ideal 
in the relationship of the male and female. It con- 
stitutes that union spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures, 
in which the twain are one flesh. " What marriage may 
be," says the late John Stuart Mill, " in the case of 

i95 



196 



MARRIAGE. 



two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinion 
and purpose, between whom there exists that best 
kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities 
with reciprocal superiority in them, — so that each can 
enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can 
have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being 
led in the path of development, — I will not attempt to 
describe. To those who can conceive it, there is no 
need; to those who cannot, it would appear the dream 
of an enthusiast. . . . But I maintain," he con- 
tinues, "with the profoundest conviction, that this, 
and this only, is the ideal marriage; and that all 
opinions, customs, and institutions which favor any 
other notion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspira- 
tions connected with it into any other direction, by 
whatever pretenses they may be colored, are relics of 
primitive barbarism."* " In marriage," says the clever 
authoress of "John Halifax," "there must be perfect 
unity; one aim, one faith, one love, or the marriage is 
incomplete, unholy — a mere civil contract and no 
more." 

Rev. W. R. Alger, in his fine book, "The Friend- 
ships of Women," has given an excellent pen-sketch 
of the conjugal sentiment. He writes :f "Other 
things being equal, affection, wedded under every 
legal and moral sanction, reaches the highest climax, 
and is the most complete and enduring. Every failure 
implies some defect in the conditions. The readiness, 
in general, of illicit love to admit a substitute ; its 
facility of consolation and forgetfulness when any 
fatal calamity has removed its object, demonstrates 

* The Subjection of Woman, p. 177. 
f The Friendships of Women, p. 107. 



MARRIAGE. 



197 



both its lower origin and its baser nature. In a well- 
consorted marriage, the soul, the mind, esteem and 
faith, the pure strain of friendship, enter more largely. 
The grave is not the boundary of its function. After 
death the love is cherished in the ideal life of the 
mind as vividly as ever and with an added sanctity. 
Widowed memory clings to the disconsolate happiness 
of sitting by the fountain of oblivion and drawing up 
the sunken treasure. If, as Statius said, to love the 
living be a pleasant indulgence, to love the dead is a 
religious duty: 

" ' Vivam arnare voluptas ; defunctam religio.' " 

Theodore Parker regarded marriage as a " spiritual 
affair" as well as a corporeal ; and maintained that the 
spirit of one sex "is incomplete without the other."* 

Such, in brief, is the abstract or psychological con- 
ception of true marriage. According to the canons 
of the Roman Catholic church, marriage is a sacra- 
ment : a union of one man with one woman, effected, 
in the absence of canonical disabilities, by the priestly 
sanction and blessing, — the chief requisite being a 
merely sexual one. In law, marriage is a civil contract 
between one man and one woman competent to con- 
tract, founded upon mutual consent, — nothing more. 

But neither the political, canonical, nor the psycho- 
logical nature and conception of the marital relation 
concerns, strictly speaking, the purpose of my essay. 
That purpose comprehends some of the moral and 
physiological problems of marriage, rather than its 
essential nature. 

The influence of marriage upon the character of an 

* Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, vol. i. p. 386. 



198 



MARRIAGE. 



individual, and through the individual upon the 
well-being of society, can hardly be overrated. 
Marriage is the foundation of the family. The moral 
status of the latter is derived from that of the former. 
If the family be legitimately grounded in the laws of 
conjugal order and mutual fitness, its influence is in- 
calculably beneficent. If the family, on the other 
hand, be constituted upon ill-assorted, discordant 
wedlock, its baleful influence is far-reaching and 
damning ; diffusing the elements of disease and of 
moral disorder to its remotest branches. The law of 
cause and effect is peculiarly operative in the marriage 
and family relation. As well expect pure water to 
flow from impure fountains, as domestic peace, pros- 
perity and a pure progeny from discordant wedlock. 
While congenial wedlock is a perpetual inspiration to 
virtuous ends and deeds, and dispenses peace and joy 
and blessedness to all within the circle of its influence, 
ill-conditioned wedlock incites to discord and to dis- 
appointment, with their accompanying vexations and 
morbid tendency. " It is hardly possible," says Mill, 
" for one who is in these bonds to attain exalted vir- 
tue;"* and, I may safely add, to retain it, if once 
acquired. 

The rationale of the influence of conjugal love in 
marriage on the individual is not far to seek. True 
marriage ennobles the instincts, and exalts the finer 
and nobler elements of one's being. It is the natural 
antidote of passion and sensuality; for the higher ele- 
ments of mind, as veneration, ideality, kindness, gen- 
tleness, generosity, patience, conscientiousness, etc., 

* The Subjection of Woman, p. 166. 



MARRIAGE. 



I 99 



are continually exercised toward the object of conjugal 
affection. All the great centres of animal and spiritual 
life are called into healthful activity ; precluding un- 
due vital concentration upon any special function, and 
preserving that great desideratum and concomitant of 
culture, mental balance. The married state is the 
only normal, natural condition, for the rightly con- 
stituted individual. In that relation, when harmonious, 
the heart with its desires, longings, and aspirations, is 
perpetually ministered unto. Life is a continuous 
blessing in the heart and home, although storms and 
vexations may possibly prevail without. 

Washington Irving truly says : "And, indeed, I have 
observed that a married man falling into misfortune is 
more apt to retain his situation in the world than a 
single one ; partly because he is more stimulated to 
exertion by the necessities of the helpless and be- 
loved beings who depend upon him for subsistence, 
but chiefly because his spirits are soothed and relieved 
by domestic endearment, and his self-respect kept alive 
by finding that though all abroad is darkness and 
humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at 
home of which he is the monarch. Whereas a single 
man is apt to run to waste and self-neglect ; to fancy 
himself lonely and abandoned, and his heart to fall to 
ruin like some deserted mansion, for want of an in- 
habitant."* 

An old gentleman, who, early in life, had struggled 
with misfortune and poverty, remarked to the writer 
that after marriage he was perfectly happy in the hum- 
ble log-hut which he had rudely constructed for their 

* Sketch Book, ii. p. 35. 



200 MARRIAGE. 

dwelling-place. The mutual love and contentment 
which they enjoyed more than compensated for being 
deprived of the luxuries which his more affluent 
neighbors possessed, but with a joyless love. "Better 
is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox 
and hatred therewith."* 

Moreover, a well-grounded love rounds off the an- 
gularities of the character, soothes the irritable-minded, 
and chastens and adorns the spirit; develops sweet- 
ness, amiability, gentleness, and promotes self-conse- 
cration, where before may have existed sourness, irri- 
tability, and selfishness. It promotes harmony of 
mental development, adds to the amenities, and modi- 
fies mental eccentricities; augments urbanity, and 
breaks down moral crotchets and acerbities. How 
often are these good effects observed in married peo- 
ple ! Two pictures in my possession of a late lady 
friend, one taken before, the other after, the affections 
were betrothed, exhibit these contrasts in a striking 
manner. 

It is this influence upon individual character and 
destiny that gives to true marriage its real charm and 
peculiar sacredness. Nor does it decay and weaken 
with the lapse of time. The mystic stream of sym- 
pathy which perpetually flows between souls thus 
united cannot be measured by physical tests nor 
earthly interests. It springs from spiritual sources, 
deep and subtle as life itself. "The conditions," says 
Mr. Alger, " that originally inspired the confiding and 
admiring sympathy, become, with the lapse of time 
and the progress of acquaintance, more pronounced 



-:•:- Proverbs xv. 17. 



MARRIAGE. 



201 



and more adequate, and insure a union ever fonder 
and more blent."* The influence which they exert 
over the life of each other is correspondingly in- 
creased, and grows more noble and more elevating. 
How rare it is to find moral obliquity in congenial 
wedlock ! 

Sir James Mackintosh's beautiful tribute to his wife 
belongs more to the blessed relation which they sus- 
tained to each other, than to that noble woman per- 
sonally. He says : " She gently reclaimed me from 
dissipation ; propped my weak and irresolute nature > 
urged my indolence to all the exertion that has been 
useful and creditable to me ; and was perpetually at 
hand to admonish my heedlessness or improvidence. 
In her solicitude for my interests, she never for a mo- 
ment forgot my feelings or character." The great- 
minded Melanchthon acknowledges his indebtedness 
to a similar influence on the part of his wife Cather- 
ine, whom he was induced to marry against his judg- 
ment and inclination, and whom he finally came to 
love in spite of his religious training and life-long con- 
victions. The late J. S. Mill also pays his beloved and 
accomplished wife a like tribute.f 

" There are natures," says George Eliot, " in which, 
if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of 
baptism and consecration. They bind us over to recti- 
tude and purity by their pure belief about us ; and our 
sins become that worst kind of sacrilege which tears 
down the invisible altar of trust."! Many a young 
man dates his reclamation from a career of dissolute- 



* The Friendships of Women, p. 88. f Essay on Liberty (Dedication). 

% Middlemarch, v.ol. ii. p. 383. 

18 



202 MARRIAGE. 

ness and immorality to one of purity and usefulness, 
from the time his love was sincerely awakened. Men 
have been reclaimed from drunkenness, sensuality 
reckless profligacy, and nameless petty vices and mis- 
demeanors, by devoutly loving a woman of noble tastes 
and sympathies, — so closely is love allied to worship 
and religious sentiment. And two instances have 
come to my knowledge of two pairs, mutually dis- 
reputable, marrying, and leading reputable lives there- 
after. Indeed, love is the turning-point in the lives of 
some men ; the point of departure into ways of virtue 
and respectability, or of reckless shame and dissipa- 
tion. Others are mere boys in mental growth and 
judgment until married, and in many instances would 
otherwise remain so if they lived a century ! 

The influence of marriage upon health and lon- 
gevity has recently received some attention in 
France; and one of her savants has, by the aid of 
statistics, placed the subject in a strong, clear light. 
''In a paper read by M. Bertillon before the Academy 
of Medicine of Paris, the author — using as evidence 
the statistics of France, Holland, and Belgium — 
strongly maintained the healthful influence of conju- 
gal association as compared with that of celibacy. 
The figures show that, between the ages of 20 and 35 
years, 1000 married men furnish 6 deaths; 1000 
bachelors, 10 deaths; and 1000 widowers, 22 deaths. 
From 30 to 35 years of age, the same classes, respect- 
ively, furnish 7. n and Ijyi deaths. From 35 to 40 
years of age, the mortality is 7^, 13, and \J]/z per 
1000 respectively. And so on, in a series of tables for 
all ages, the married man has greater longevity than 
the single man. The same advantage of the married 



MARRIAGE. 



203 



state obtains in the case of females, though up to the 
age of 30 the difference is not so apparent as in the 
other sex. From 30 to 35 the mortality is 11 per 
1000 for single women, and only 9 per 1000 for mar- 
ried women, and this difference increases up to the 
age of 55. Thus from 50 to 55 years of age, 1000 
wives furnish only 15 or 16 deaths, while as many 
single women or widows furnish 26 or 27. This ad- 
vantage remains very notable beyond that age, dimin- 
ishing but little. In France, however, under 25, and 
in Paris, under 20 years of age, marriage is far from 
favorable, but even injurious, as also in the case of 
males. The mortality of unmarried girls of from 15 
to 20 is 7.53 per 1000; the mortality of wives of the 
same age being 11.86. The mortality of girls from 20 
to 25 is 8.32 ; of wives of the same age, 9.92."* 

Moral, or more properly psychical, changes through 
the influence of love are not less pronounced than physi- 
cal. They are observable in both sexes, although in un- 
equal proportion, for the probable reason that the aver- 
age extremes of character in woman are less marked. 
Her position in society protects her from many of the 
perturbing influences that act badly upon men. Still, 
they may be observed. The most consummate flirt I 
ever knew makes the man she ultimately wedded a 
most faithful and dutiful spouse. Another woman of 
similar antecedents married, and, giving over all 
thought of further conquests, became an excellent 
wife and a noble woman. A third lived miserably 
with her first husband, but happily with the second. 

That the twain were designed to be mutually help- 

* N.Y. Daily Tribune, July 4, 1872. 






204 MARRIAGE. 

ful and a blessing to each other is too evident for 
serious argument. One is the complement of the 
other, and neither is complete separable from the 
other. It must be admitted, I think, that the best 
qualities of either are seldom developed without the 
mutual assistance and co-operation of the other. 
Nowhere in nature can be found such surprising 
manifestations of divine order and wisdom as is to 
be observed in the reciprocal relation of the sexes to 
each other! 

Such is the mutual influence of the conjugal rela- 
tion, and some of its hallowed consequences upon the 
individual when cemented and consecrated by love. 
An association of individuals so full of consecrating 
influences, under propitious conditions, becomes a union 
for the engendering and propagation of every species 
of vice, misery, and degradation, when formed in dis- 
regard of connubial laws, or perpetuated in defiance of 
their injunction. "Nowhere else," says Mr. Alger, "has 
knowledge such free scope, have the inducements for 
esteem or contempt such unhampered range, as in 
this relation. The inmost secrets of the parties are 
always exposed to revelation or to betrayal. Hypocrisy 
and deception are reduced to the narrowest limits. Ac- 
cordingly, both the most absolute antagonism and mis- 
ery, and the most absolute sympathy and happiness, are 
known in the conjugal union."* The carnally minded 
when mis-mated become more sensual ; the vicious 
and morbid impulses of the heart receive fresh provo- 
cation and impetus ; and all the higher elements of 
thought and feeling, of trust and love, degenerate into 

* The Friendships of Women, p. 84. 



MARRIAGE. 



205 



hatred and lust. The endless clashing of personal and 
opposing interests, impulses, tastes, and the irritations 
and mutual recriminations that are continually en- 
gendered, augment the various elements of discord 
and dissension that may have been latent before, and 
breed manifold miseries, necessarily ending sooner or 
later in the spiritual death of the parties. 

I knew a young man of pious parentage and train- 
ing, who grew up to manhood with the purest speech 
and habit, and who never uttered a foul word nor 
committed a mean act until frenzied by discordant 
wedlock, and its sequence, intemperance. Another, of 
equal virtue and promise, married uncongenially, and 
disheartened, disappointed, and depressed, also sought 
oblivion from domestic dissension in the intoxicating 
cup. Many others, of like promise and worth, some 
of whom I knew intimately in my youth, and others 
whose acquaintance has been formed in professional 
life, have, from similar causes, gone the same unhappy 
way to miserable ends : others again, who, unable to 
maintain their integrity and self-respect and that of the 
family in an ill-assorted union, have sought diversion 
in absence or travel, or have interested themselves in 
business, or science, or literature, and thus secured im- 
munity from the evils incident to hopes disappointed. 
Most fortunate, surely, are those who are able thus to 
flank grave misfortunes, and resolutely maintain the 
ascendency of virtue in their daily walk and life. More 
often the unhappily married cling to each other under 
the pressure of a misguided public sentiment, and in- 
dulge in ceaseless wrangles and petty persecutions, 
mutually enfeebling and demoralizing; ending not 
unfrequently, as the daily records of events too often 



206 MARRIAGE. 

show, in the perpetration of the most wanton and 
criminal acts against each other, and the order and 
peace of society. 

The influence of marriage upon the progeny is even 
more potent for weal or woe than upon the mar- 
ried themselves. Gail Hamilton most forcibly and 
truly says : " To give life to a sentient being without 
being able to make provision to turn life to the best 
account, — to give life, careless whether it will be bale 
or boon to its recipient, — is the sin of sins. Every other 
sin mars what it finds; this makes what it mars."* 
Children are the offspring of their parents in more than 
a figurative sense. They are the literal products of their 
progenitors immediate and remote. The mental and 
physical conditions of the parents are bred in the 
bodies and brains of their progeny. Nor is this all: 
children are endowed and vitally influenced by the pe- 
culiar circumstances and normal or abnormal activities 
which are most dominant in their parents at the time 
of conception. Nothing is more absurdly common in 
the medical profession than the query whether this or 
that peculiarity is propagable. It is time such questions 
ceased to puzzle the brains of medical savants. It is 
undeniable that every cell and fibre of every organ and 
tissue, brain and nerve, with every peculiar property, 
mental and physical, possessed by the creature, was 
received by him through no prehensile act of his own, 
but directly from nature through the organizing influ- 
ences of its parents' organization. There is, then, no 
peculiarity, whether mental or physical, normal or 
abnormal, that is not transmissible ; but the most 

* Woman's Wrongs, p. 199. 



MARRIAGE. 



207 



strongly characteristic traits of parents are more often 
the ones more strongly impressed upon the progeny, 
and for that reason become the more prominent ob- 
jects of observation and study. Mr. George Combe, 
for example, mentions a man of superior talents, who 
indulged in wild and mischievous revelry at the time 
of his marriage, and who " congratulated himself on 
his subsequent domestication and moral improvement. 
His eldest son, born in his riotous days, notwithstand- 
ing a strictly moral education, turned out a personifi- 
cation of the father's actual condition at that time."* 

The virtues and vices of parents thus live again in 
the lives of their offspring. Children not only inherit 
the wisdom and follies, vices and virtues, diseases and 
derangements, but also the physical and mental char- 
acteristics most prominent, as I have said, at the time 
of conception. The young being, like the sensitive 
glass in the camera, faithfully transcribes and repro- 
duces all the impressions it receives from its parents. 
A German writer, therefore, wisely observes, f that 
" when a woman is likely to become a mother, she 
ought to be doubly careful of her temper; and, in 
particular, to indulge no ideas that are not cheerful, 
and no sentiments that are not kind. Such is the con- 
nection between mind and body, that the features of 
the face are moulded commonly into an expression 
of the internal disposition ; and is it not natural to 
think that an infant, before it is born, may be affected 
by the temper of its mother?" 

Nothing is more fully established in physiology 



* Constitution of Man, p. 184. 

f Ibid., from Margravine's Memoirs, vol. ii. chap. viii. 



208 MARRIAGE. 

than the fact of hereditary transmission of the vari- 
ous qualities and peculiar idiosyncrasies, abnormal 
or otherwise, of both mother and father, to the off- 
spring. Works on physiology are replete with such 
facts ; and physiologists universally agree not only 
upon the credibility of the facts, but also upon the 
laws through which they occur. " This view," says 
the learned Dr. Carpenter,* " must be extended to 
that remarkable hereditary transmission of psychical 
character, which presents itself under circumstances 
that entirely forbid our attributing it to any agency 
that can operate subsequently to birth, and which it 
would seem impossible to account for on any other 
hypothesis than that the formative capacity of the germ 
determines the subsequent development of the brain, 
as of other parts ,of the body, and (through this) its 
mode of activity in accordance with the influences 
under which that germ was first impregnated." 

The eminent author of " Researches into the Physi- 
cal History of Mankind," Dr. Pritchard, observes that 
" the opinion which formerly prevailed, and which 
has been entertained by some modern writers, among 
whom is Dr. Darwin, that at the period when organiza- 
tion commences in the ovum — that is, at, or soon after, 
the time of conception — the structure of the foetus is 
capable of undergoing modifications from impressions 
on the mind or senses of the parent, does not appear 
altogether so improbable. It is contradicted at least 
by no fact in physiology. It is an opinion of very 
ancient prevalence, and may be traced to so remote a 
period that its rise cannot be attributed to the specu- 

* Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 574, sec. 630. 



MARRIAGE. 



209 



lations of philosophers ; and it is difficult to account 
for the origin of such a persuasion, unless we ascribe 
it to the facts which happen to be observed." Surely 
not. In this connection Mr. Combe relates a corrobo- 
rative illustration that came under his personal obser- 
vation, which, however, it is needless to repeat here, 
as all medical men and most intelligent lay people are 
fully cognizant of similar phenomena. Besides, there 
are few who will not recall the artifice practiced by 
Jacob* on his father-in-law — Laban's — cattle, by 
which he forestalled the color of the stock, showing 
that that worthy patriarch was well acquainted with 
the law of parental influence and of hereditary descent. 

Dr. John Mason Good, the distinguished author 
and physician, says that " stupidity, like wit, is propa- 
gable ; and hence we frequently see it run from one 
generation to another, and not unfrequently it forms 
a distinctive mark in the mental character of districts 
or nations, — in many cases, indeed, when they border 
closely on each other."f Apropos of stupidity being 
transmissible, the learned Haller, in his "Elements 
of Physiology," says: "We know a very remark- 
able instance of two noble females (women) who got 
husbands on account of their wealth, although they 
were nearly idiots, and from whom this mental defect 
has extended for a century into several families, so that 
some of all their descendants still continue idiots in 
the fourth and even in the fifth generation. 

Moral perversity is transmitted to the offspring. 
The proximate causes of deceitfulness, hatred, pre- 



* Genesis xxx. 

f Study of Medicine, vol. ii. p. 217, gen. iv., spec. 1, Moria imiecillis. 



2io MARRIAGE. 

variations, jealousy, ill-temper, and all the various 
forms of nervous irritability and of mental derange- 
ments, reappear in the character of the innocent pro- 
geny. A family came under my personal observation, 
the mother of which was addicted to opium-eating, a 
habit she had for years carefully and successfully con- 
cealed from her family and friends. The children born 
during this time, of which there were several, are 
nearly all most adroit liars ! The most discreet relig- 
ious training and education wholly failed to eradicate 
the unhappy vice. George Combe quotes Esquirol, 
the celebrated French physician and author, and whom 
I have already quoted in these pages, who states that 
" many children whose existence dated from periods 
when the horrors of the French Revolution were at 
their height, turned out subsequently to be weak, 
nervous, and irritable in mind, extremely susceptible 
of impressions, and liable to be thrown by the least 
extraordinary excitement into absolute insanity."* 

As a noted example of the transmission of fear 
from temporary mental impressions, Mr. Combe re- 
lates the circumstances of the murder of David Rizzio 
by armed nobles, in the presence of Mary, Queen of 
Scots, just previous to the birth of her son, after- 
wards King James the First of England. " The con- 
stitutional liability of this monarch to emotions of 
fear," says Combe, " is recorded as characteristic of 
his mind ; and it is mentioned that he even started 
involuntarily at the sight of a drawn sword." The 
well-known courage which distinguished all the other 
members of the Stuart family makes this exception 
the more noticeable. 

* Constitution of Man, p. 180. 



MARRIAGE. 211 

Courage is likewise transmissible. Napoleon Bona- 
parte furnishes a noted example. Scott relates that 
" it was in the middle of civil discord, fights, and 
skirmishes, that Charles Bonaparte married Laetitia 
Ramolini, one of the most beautiful young women of 
the island, and possessed of a great deal of firmness 
of character. She partook of the dangers of her hus- 
band during the years of civil war, and is said to have 
accompanied him on horseback on some military ex- 
peditions, or perhaps hasty flights, shortly before her 
being delivered of the future emperor."* 

The propensity to steal is also hereditary. Several 
instances have come to my knowledge in the course of 
my professional experience ; in one case a clergyman, 
whose two sons grew up expert thieves, and were 
finally convicted of forgery and robbery, and sent to 
the penitentiary. They inherited the peculiar misfor- 
tune apparently from the maternal ancestry; although 
the father also had an immense development of the 
animal brain, the exercise of which was probably 
checked by the restraining influence of favorable cir- 
cumstances. Another unhappy instance of this pro- 
pensity existed in a young daughter, who received it 
from the paternal ancestor. In spite of the most exem- 
plary training and considerate supply of every needed 
luxury, the vice could neither be eradicated nor re- 
pressed. 

Mr. Combe says that children frequently inherit 
the perverse eccentricities of both parents in an 
aggravated degree ; indeed, are very likely to do so 
when such parents are discordantly mated.f Numer- 

* Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, vol. iii. p. 6. 
| See Constitution of Man, p. 196 et seq. 



212 MARRIAGE. 

ous instances of the kind have come under my own 
observation, in which I could discover most clearly in 
the same child the combative, overbearing spirit of 
the father, combined with the acquiring, deceptive 
traits of the mother. That author relates similar 
observations of his own, in which the family became 
a theatre of war and threatened bloodshed, or wild 
debauchery and crime; the unfortunate progeny in- 
heriting "the large animal development of the one 
with the defective moral development of the other; 
and, in this way, was inferior to both." Such marriages 
people our prisons and penitentiaries, almshouses, 
asylums, and other charitable and criminal institutions. 
Now, in order to fulfil all the conditions of proper 
parentage, something more is required than the moral 
and intellectual fitness of the parents, as desirable as 
this is. Mr. Combe's very able writings on the sub- 
ject rest there; as if to go further would be unwar- 
rantable speculation. But who does not know that 
the twain may mutually possess the very highest ex- 
cellence of moral and intellectual development, and 
the added charms of physical and mental grace and 
beauty, and yet lack the essential element of conju- 
gality? Such people may surely be friends; but to 
form the higher and holier relation of husband and 
wife, another element is indispensable, which it is 
most difficult to define, but which may be character- 
ized, in the absence of better terms, as mutual fitness, — 
temperamental adaptation, — love. The ancient Spar- 
tans, whom we are pleased to style pagans, appear to 
have been more conversant with this subject than 
their enlightened descendants. That their progeny 
might not be generated under inferior conditions and 



MARRIAGE. 



213 



their race suffer degeneration, they used every possi- 
ble precaution against matrimonial alliances otherwise 
than on the true basis of conjugal affinity, or consti- 
tutional fitness on the part of the parents for each 
other. A living illustration will elucidate my mean- 
ing : a lady and gentleman of rare culture and intel- 
lectual acquirements, with the added quality of mutual 
esteem, formed an acquaintance, and through the per- 
suasion of friends, who knew it would make such a 
good match, and against the fine intuitive judgment of 
the lady herself, finally married. Mutual and irrecon- 
cilable differences of feeling, opinion, and taste soon de- 
veloped, which ended in chronic and ineradicable dislike. 
Children came to them and added fuel to the kindling 
flame of domestic dissension. Nothing kept the family 
together but the fancied welfare of the children and the 
fear of incurring the censure of the public. The lady 
herself, I am assured, has long preferred death to the 
degradations of the " hated union." Similar instances 
may be observed everywhere among civilized people. 
Now, children may possibly be born in the posses- 
sion of many good elements and qualities of character, 
under the mechanical adjustments of intellectual and 
moral qualities in their parents; but good, never. Con- 
genial wedlock is the indispensable condition of a 
pure, high-toned progeny. Grapes are not gathered 
from thorns, nor figs from thistles. The Constantines, 
Caligulas, Neros, Alexanders, Georgies, Napoleons, 
Burrs, Tannys, Byrons, and the like, may be pro- 
duced in indifferent conjugal relations. But the minds 
that move the world and bless mankind, the Solons, 
Platos, Galileos, Gotamas, Jesus's, Newtons, Shaks- 
peares, Melanchthons, Wesleys, Channings, Scotts, 

19 



214 



MARRIAGE. 



Austens, Lincolns, Greeleys, etc., require wedlock of 
a higher, nobler order. High moral and spiritual 
brains and minds are bred under no mean conditions 
— are not chance productions in nature. The superior 
excellences of human character are not accidental 
phenomena, — miraculous displays of divine wisdom ; 
but rest on the substantial basis of organic law, within 
the comprehension of everybody. If this divinest of 
all human relations were to be left to chance, and 
maintained by outward force, or influenced by motives 
of interest or ambition, I would much prefer, were it 
possible to choose, to take the chance of fine, moral 
endowment outside the confines of a merely formal 
wedlock, than run the risk of having the manifold 
miseries, so often engendered in unhappy marriage, 
entailed upon me. It would be a very unhappy alter- 
native, to be sure ; but personal character of a high 
order would more than compensate one for the con- 
ventional odium of bastardy. 

Nothing in nature can be more certain than that 
high-toned, well-endowed, happily-united families of 
children are the legimate offsprings of happy mar- 
riage only, nor that the wretched, ill-natured, im- 
moral, and discordant children which curse society 
are the equally legitimate creatures of unhappy mar- 
riage alone. My observations have been careful and 
studious, and not at all limited in their sphere, ex- 
tending over a period of twenty-five years, and I 
know of no single exception to the statement. Mr. 
Combe's observation accords entirely with that of my 
own, so far as it goes. He says : "On the other hand, 
I am not acquainted with a single instance in which 
the moral and intellectual organs predominated in both 



MARRIAGE. 



215 



father and mother, and when external circumstances 
permitted their general activity, in which the whole 
children did not partake of a moral and intellectual 
character, differing slightly in degrees of excellence 
one from another, but all presenting the decided pre- 
dominance of the human over the animal faculties."* 
Moreover, while no different result could follow the 
natural and inevitable operation of cause and effect, 
still, if such parties lack in their relationship the higher 
element of true love, their offspring will necessarily 
suffer in the nobler qualities of human character, — 
generally the social and spiritual. My own observa- 
tions afford many confirmatory examples. 

A family of my acquaintance, the father and mother 
of which are both moral and intellectual people, but 
who, mutually disliking each other, live in ceaseless 
contentions and mutual distrust, and have done so ever 
since the birth of their first child. All the children 
are most unhappy and discontented among themselves 
at home, although pleasant and contented among other 
children away, or alone separately. They are well- 
developed, fine-looking, quick-witted, and intellectual ; 
inheriting these qualities largely from both parents. 
Their moral characters would certainly not disprove 
the position of Mr, Combe. Nor are they vicious, 
ungenerous, sour, or mean. Yet they are mentally 
wanting. The fundamental defect in their mental 
organization is respect and affection. The mutual good- 
will, regard, and esteem, so indispensable to the hap- 
piness, or existence even, of home, seems wanting. 
The impulse of each is to get away from home and each 

* Constitution of Man, p. 197. 



2i6 MARRIAGE. 

other; returning only to eat and sleep; and as rarely 
for that purpose as consistent with convenience or 
necessity. Some exception to these statements should 
be taken in favor of the eldest child, which, generated 
under conditions more propitious, exhibits far more 
gentleness and affection, and correspondingly less 
waywardness and irritability. But the others inherit 
from their unhappy parents a large share of the com- 
bative, unsocial, and selfish passions which are so fre- 
quently exercised in their private intercourse.* 

Several similar cases have come to my knowledge, 
where the children, — generally a large number, for 
such unions are usually prolific, the sexual being the 
chief and only admissible converse between them, — 
as soon as large enough to care for themselves, leave 
home and kindred to return seldom as possible, or 
never. Like chickens, they are driven from the 
parental roof and care as soon as they become self- 
dependent and able to "scratch" for themselves. 
Nor are they averse to going. Such children know 
little of the sacred associations of kindred and home! 
The moral advantages of home and social life do not 
exist for them ! 

Mr. Combe, in his excellent volume on the " Con- 
stitution of Man," before quoted, relates the follow- 
ing: "A man aged about fifty, possessed a brain in 
which the animal, moral, and perceptive organs were 
all large, but the reflecting small. He was pious, 
but destitute of education ; he married an unhealthy 
young woman, deficient in moral development, but of 
considerable force of character; and several children 

* Referred to by permission. 



MARRIAGE. 2 \y 

were born. The father and mother were far from 
being happy; and when the children attained to 
eighteen or twenty years of age, they were adepts in 
every species of immorality and profligacy. They 
picked their father's pockets, stole his goods, and got 
them sold back to him, by accomplices, for money, 
which was spent in betting, cock-fighting, drinking, 
and low debauchery. The father was heavily grieved; 
but knowing only two resources, he beat the children 
severely as long as he was able, and prayed for them. 
His own words were, that, ■ if after that, it pleased the 
Lord to make vessels of wrath of them, the Lord's 
will must just be done !' I make this last observation," 
continues Mr. Combe, "not in jest, but in great 
seriousness. It was impossible not to pity the un- 
happy father; yet, who that sees the institutions of 
the Creator to be in themselves wise, but in this in- 
stance to have been directly violated, will not acknowl- 
edge that the bitter pangs of the poor old man were 
the consequences of his own ignorance ; and that it 
was an erroneous view of the divine administration 
which led him to overlook his own mistakes, and to 
attribute to the Almighty the purpose of making 
vessels of wrath of his children, as the only explana- 
tion which he could give of their wicked dispositions? 
Who that sees the cause of his misery can fail to 
lament that his piety was not enlightened by philoso- 
phy, and directed to obedience, in the first instance, 
to the organic laws of the Creator, as one of the pre- 
scribed conditions, without observance of which he 
had no title to expect a blessing upon his offspring?"* 



* Constitution of Man, pp. 195-6. 
19* 



2i8 MARRIAGE. 

The pernicious consequences on the offspring aris- 
ing from disregard of connubial laws, in forming the 
conjugal union, as illustrated in all these instances, 
the parallel of which may be found in abundance in 
society everywhere, are not, unhappily, confined to the 
period of conception, at which time the foundations 
of the constitution of the child, mental and physical, 
are laid. Such consequences are particularly opera- 
tive during gestation, when the mother is abnor- 
mally sensitive to all impressions of whatever nature. 
Every morbid impression on her mentality is likely to 
be faithfully recorded on her child. The passions, 
at such times, are peculiarly sensitive, and easily 
aroused, and unless the moral element largely pre- 
dominate in her character, assume unusual sway over 
her conduct. Hence the frequent wrangles, jealousies, 
disputes, animosities, etc., in which the ill-assorted 
so often indulge at that time, to the lasting injury of 
the prospective child. It is thus that the innocent 
becomes a victim, and receives its first baptism in sin 
and sorrow. Its nature, so wisely plastic, and recep- 
tive of the moral graces and excellences thus early, 
becomes the recipient of the elements of nervous irri- 
tability, vice, and crime. Such is being, literally, 
" conceived in sin and born in iniquity." 

There are numerous other sources of demoraliza- 
tion to the progeny of mismated parents, which, from 
personal observation, I know to be wide-spread and 
damning. I cannot forbear to allude to one in pass- 
ing. It not unfrequently happens that such matches 
are influenced altogether by a physical fancy, — a bodily 
attraction. Youthful, immature, without judgment, 
overflowing with vital ardor and strong impulses, 



MARRIAGE. 



219 



wanting in self-possession and moral restraint, men 
and women fall an easy prey to each other's physical 
attractions. " Such," says Dr. Johnson, " is the com- 
mon process of marriage, — a youth and maiden meet- 
ing by chance, or brought together by artifice, ex- 
change glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and 
dream of one another. Having little to divert atten- 
tion, or diversify thought, they find themselves un- 
easy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that 
they shall be happy together. They marry, and dis- 
cover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had 
concealed ; they wear out life in altercations, and 
charge nature with cruelty."* The nobler impulses 
and sentiments of parties thus wrongfully brought to- 
gether, and compelled to accept each other's society, 
having little moral strength at first to sustain them, 
sooner or later lose even what they had, leaving nothing 
behind but a purely animal attachment. This usually 
remains unimpaired, more often increases in force; 
and the abuses which grow out of it correspondingly 
augment. Under such circumstances, the sacred func- 
tion of gestation is rarely respected ; sexual passion 
intrudes upon the finer instincts and feelings of the 
wife, and she is forced to submit to conduct" which, 
under the circumstances, cannot but awaken feelings 
toward her lord of repugnance or of deep disgust. The 
extent to which this abuse is carried in civilized 
society is most lamentable. It is a flagrant outrage 
upon maternity and the rights of the unborn, and in- 
flicts grievous wrongs on the health of the mother, 
and the constitution and mental traits of her child. 

* Rasselas, chap, xxix., quoted by Combe, 



220 MARRIAGE. 

How could such excesses, at such times, do otherwise 
than aggravate the penalties of a relation already im- 
pure and discordant, when the heightened sensibilities 
of her who is a mother, or about to become such, is 
considered ? A due regard for the life and moral well- 
being of the offspring, should adjure the husband and 
father to impose no act on the wife likely to awaken 
or develop in her a thought not just, or a sentiment 
not pure and kind ; and what is true in respect to the 
period of gestation applies with almost equal force and 
pertinency to the period of lactation. It is well known 
that during the exercise of the latter function, also, the 
mother is peculiarly sensitive to nervous disturbances, 
and that violent emotions poison her milk, and en- 
danger the moral and physical health of the infant. 

Moreover, as a general rule, husbands and wives 
thus constituted have extreme aversion to children ; 
and if they are born to them at all, it is against their 
will and purpose. They did not marry to discharge 
the sacred offices of parentage; and no effort is spared 
but the manly one, to circumvent it. No artifice is left 
untried. Inordinate doses of poisonous emmenagogues 
are remorselessly swallowed. The art of the surgeon 
is invoked ; and if the little creature, which has been 
so thoughtlessly endowed with a living soul, survives 
these assaults, it is often intensely disliked. It is, in 
fact, an unwelcome child ! In three instances during 
my professional life I have attended women in con- 
finement who were anxious that their babe should 
not be born alive ! Two of the number actually ex- 
pressed a desire to " strangle it !" — a most melancholy 
experience, surely. Such wives have generally to 
learn to love their offspring. 



MARRIAGE. 221 

Now, in view of such facts, is it any wonder that 
children born out of wedlock are frequently superior 
to many who are born in it? Not at all. Bastards, 
while they are conceived in sin, are generally bred 
and reared in virtue; while their more respectable 
brothers are too often conceived in sin, with the added 
disability of being born in iniquity also.* 

These anomalies in domestic life — if such they may 
be called — are, of course, naturally confined to the 
lower grades of marriage, — to the civil marriage, — 
what Milton has very pertinently designated "an out- 
side matrimony." They are as far removed from the 
marital phenomena of pure, congenial wedlock, as are 
the antipodes. Love, in the latter relation, is more a 
sentiment, an inspiration, than an impulse. The sen- 
sual element, under its influence, attends upon mater- 
nity in the strictest chastity. The carnal has lapsed 
into the spiritual. Both parties to the bond look for- 
ward to parentage with the liveliest interest and solici- 
tude; and their parental love, so early awakened, grows 
stronger as time advances and brings its precious 
object nearer and nearer the complete realization. 
The wife, moreover, is never dearer and lovelier in the 
eye of her husband. With hopeful trust, he guards 
her from every possible harm and grievance; waits 
upon her instincts ; cherishes her respect and esteem ; 
fosters her finer sentiments; and protects her from 
every influence unfriendly to her and the life and 
moral well-being of her child. 

The relation of the sexes, therefore, is a subject of 



* In Scotland nearly 10 per cent, of the total number of births are illegiti- 
mate. See Note at the end of the chapter. 



222 MARRIAGE. 

profound importance to the welfare of mankind ; and 
the facts herewith presented would appear to justify 
its connection with mental hygiene. In forestalling 
the quality of the bud, the character of the blossom is 
controlled. The remedy for the evils incident thereto, 
and the means of securing so desirable an object, are 
more difficult of application than of suggestion. 

" The cure of false theology is mother wit," says 
Emerson.* The remedy for error of whatever class 
is knowledge ; for man obeys his highest perceptions 
of truth, \i for no other reason, because it pays to do 
so. Many well-meaning moralists, in view of the 
miseries matrimonial, which appear to be on the in- 
crease in this country, are clamoring at the door of 
the legislatures, and in the ear of the public, for more 
stringent laws to protect the sanctity of the marital 
relation. These people associate the increasing fre- 
quency of divorce with the domestic violence and 
crime, which are so alarmingly prevalent, as sustaining 
the relation of cause and sequence. Such a conclu- 
sion seems unwarrantable from the evidence, except, 
indeed, it be in the inverse order to that claimed by 
them ; for it were easy to show, by local statistics 
of crime, that crimes and immoralities prevail more 
largely in communities and commonwealths where 
divorces are least numerous and most difficult to pro- 
cure. Be that as it may, I am always suspicious of 
the logic of him who can conceive of no more effect- 
ive means of correcting the evils of his day and race, 
than the passage of legislative enactments. It evinces 
too little faith in God and the human constitution. 

* Conduct of Life, p. 187. 



MARRIAGE. 



223 



The day for the exercise of such logic is past. The 
attempt to legislate food into a man's stomach would 
be quite as rational as to legislate morals into his 
heart; to add to his stature, as to improve his man- 
ners. Making laws to do this, or to effect that, so 
far as morals are concerned, has long since been 
abandoned by the common sense of mankind. Why, 
there is no dearth of laws ! God, the Father and Au- 
thor of all, provided an adequate supply of them at the 
beginning! It is incumbent on man to know and to 
obey them. To know, rightly to appreciate, them 
is almost synonymous to their practical obedience, so 
intimate is the relation of knowledge and obligation. 
The truth has become almost self-evident, that igno- 
rance and crime bear to each other the relation of 
cause and consequence. 

The primary remedy for these evils, then, is knowl- 
edge — knowledge of ourselves. Legislative edicts are 
quite secondary. Unless I have read history to no pur- 
pose, it is full of instruction bearing upon this subject. 
Take, for example, the Roman republic. There was a 
time when her domestic manners, if Plutarch and others 
are to be credited, were the pride of her people and an 
example to the whole world. For several centuries, but 
one divorce was known to her courts, and the procurer 
of that, one Camillus Spurius, was ever after execrated 
in consequence. Well, Rome became corrupt by the 
usual causes and consequences, viz., an influx of igno- 
rant people; worldly prosperity and affluence; avarice, 
pride and selfishness, and their usual concomitants — 
vice. Society fell from the dizzy height of unparalleled 
perfection and splendor to the direst depths of extra- 
vagance and corruption. The women were profligate 



224 



MARRIAGE. 



and licentious ; the men kept mistresses and avoided 
matrimony. The few who embraced marriage did not 
respect the institution, and abandoned it at pleasure. 
Divorces, of course, were common, and for divers 
causes. During the empire, and even in the time 
of Julius Caesar, legislative attempts were essayed to 
change the course of domestic events, and stem the tide 
of evil influences which had set in and was undermining 
its very life. The government actually put a premium 
upon marriage as an inducement to parties to embrace 
it and keep its obligations. Rewards were offered to 
women who would bear children, hoping thereby to 
break up the system of concubinage which prevailed 
so largely, and promote pure, sincere marriage. Fines, 
and various other disabilities were imposed on women 
who had arrived at a certain age without bearing chil- 
dren. But all was of no avail. Later, under the 
Christian emperor, Constantine, society had grown so 
much worse that heavy fines were imposed on the un- 
married of both sexes. The laws regulating divorce, 
which previously were very lax, now, under the teach- 
ings of the New Testament, were nearly as stringent 
as they are at this day in the Romish church. But 
neither precepts nor penalties produced the desired 
effect. Rome sunk into merited ruin and contempt, 
in spite of the wisest man-made laws that could be 
devised for her government and regeneration. She 
passed away, — died out. Centuries'have now slept upon 
her ruins ; but the long dark ages that followed her 
decline have left most prominent this lesson of her foil.* 



* See on this subject Moshelm's Ecclesiastical History, and Gibbon's 
Decline and Fall." 



MARRIAGE. 



225 






Now, nature's laws flow direct from God. They 
are the latest revelation of his will and purpose to him 
who can read them. They are in the highest degree 
authoritative, and cannot be set aside or annulled 
by any statute or canon of church or state. Igno- 
rance and misapprehension may pervert and prevent 
the fulfillment of their legitimate purpose ; but they 
are still operative, as evinced in the manifold penalties 
(evils) that follow upon their infringement. Another 
illustration of this truth is furnished in the historical 
struggles of the church with celibacy. 

The fourth council of Carthage, which convened 
about a.d. 400, definitively decreed the celibacy of 
priests, deacons, and bishops in the Christian church. 
A few years later, Pope Innocent I. gave orders to 
depose such priests as had been guilty of marriage 
since their ordination. And the above-named council 
annulled the marriage of such priests and bishops as 
had contracted that relation previous to the decree. 
Nature's laws permitting marriage to all were, indeed, 
contravened in these decrees. "The hope of acquiring 
heaven by virginity and mortification," says Keightley, 
"was not confined to the male sex; woman, with 
the enthusiasm and the devotional tendency peculiar 
to her, rushed eagerly toward the crown of glory. 
Nunneries became numerous, and were thronged with 
inmates."* Ecclesiastical ordinances seemed for a 
time to have supplemented the order of nature and 
the law of God. What could be more natural, after all, 
under the strong impetus of religious enthusiasm and 
superstition? If celibacy were an indispensable re- 



* Keightley's Hist. Rom. Emp., chap. vi. 
. 20 



22 6 MARRIAGE. 

quisite of spirituality in the priesthood, it was equally 
indispensable to that excellence in lay-people. This 
conclusion was a natural, inevitable corollary. But 
how was that anomalous condition of life to be main- 
tained in good faith, unless men and women were 
removed from the wiles and temptations of each 
other, and the depraved influences of the world? The 
consequences of this unnatural decree soon developed 
themselves in the establishment and peopling of con- 
vents and monasteries, in which were reproduced the 
vices of the outside world in their most revolting 
forms ; vices which make one blush to read ; vices 
of too shameful a character to transcribe upon paper. 
Nor was any other result to be rationally expected. 
"The number," says Mosheim, "of immoral and un- 
worthy Christians began so to increase, that the ex- 
amples of real piety and virtue became extremely 
rare."* And Keightley says that nature " not unfre- 
quently asserted her rights ; and the complaints and 
admonitions of the most celebrated fathers assure us 
that the unnatural state of vowed celibacy was produc- 
tive of the same evils and scandals in ancient as in 
modern times. "f And again, Mosheim observes : 
" When we cast an eye toward the lives and morals of 
Christians at this time (fourth century), we find, as for- 
merly, a mixture of good and evil ; some eminent for 
piety, others infamous for their crimes. The number, 
however, of immoral Christians began so to increase, 
that the examples of real piety and virtue became cx- 

* Mosheim's Ecc. Hist., Cent. 4, part ii. chap. iii. p. 116. 
f Hist. Rom. Empire. See Lccky's I list. European Morals, and also 
Lea's able Hist. Sacerdotal Celibacy and the Nunneries of the Middle 

A ,-s. 






MARRIAGE. 227 

tremely rare. When the terrors of persecution were 
totally dispelled; when the church, secured from the 
efforts of its enemies, enjoyed the sweets of pros- 
perity and peace; when the major part of the bishops 
exhibited to their flock the contagious example of arro- 
gance, luxury, effeminacy, animosity, and strife, with 
other vices too numerous to mention ; when the inferior 
rulers and doctors of the church fell into a slothful and 
opprobrious negligence of the duties of their respective 
stations, and employed in vain wrangling and idle dis- 
putes that zeal and attention which were due to the 
culture of piety and to the instruction of their people; 
and when (to complete the enormity of this horrid 
detail) multitudes were drawn into the profession of 
Christianity, not by the power of conviction and argu- 
ment, but by the prospect of gain or the fear of 
punishment; then it was indeed no wonder that the 
church was contaminated with shoals of profligate 
Christians, and that the virtuous few were, in a manner, 
oppressed and overwhelmed by the superior number 
of the wicked and licentious."* 

Nothing could be more praiseworthy than the pur- 
pose and spirit of these celibacic decrees, so unwise 
and mischievous in practical results. They were, how- 
ever, acts of supererogation, and presupposed the pos- 
session by man of wisdom superior to that of Him 
who disposes of all mundane events. How much 
more consistent and rational were the laws of the an- 
cient pagans, such, for example, as those introduced 
by Lycurgus and Solon, which simply conformed to 
nature and left the results with God! And how much 

* Mosheim's Eccl. History, p. n6, chap. iii. 



228 MARRIAGE. 

more beneficent were those results ! Instance Sparta, 
where the vice of adultery was unknown. Instance 
also pagan Rome, where divorce, for a period of five 
hundred and fourteen years, was unknown. 

If, therefore, wisdom and chastity cannot be legis- 
lated into a people, are their follies and vices to go 
unrestrained and uncontrolled ? By no means. The 
causes of all these wayward appetencies must be re- 
moved by wholesome discipline, physiological enlight- 
enment, and appropriate legislation. It is obligatory 
on society to do this work for the individual. The 
conditions from which the various forms of abnormal 
tendencies, desires, and habits flow, demand correc- 
tion. Precepts should be inculcated and laws enacted 
to promote human culture in its broad significance ; 
and to regulate the forms, etc., of the domestic 
compact, social and other relations, conformable to 
the circumstances, nature, and requirements of man. 
Let the light of rational philosophy do this regen- 
erating work, since all other philosophy has signally 
failed to do it. 
I The wise physician exhibits his skill more by an- 
ticipating the progressive and conservating forces of 
nature, in combating diseased manifestations, than in 
blindly attempting to cure that of the nature of which 
he often knows little or nothing. So, while moralists 
and formularists are disputing over the nature and 
origin of evil, and passing impracticable legislative 
edicts, the true philosopher seeks to diffuse a knowl- 
edge of the conditions of human life, that the real 
source and cause of physical and moral abnormali- 
ties may gradually dissipate, — vanish like the mists of 
early morning before the god of day. 



MARRIAGE. 



229 



Much may be learned on this subject from the laws 
and regulations of Lycurgus, one of Greece's ancient 
rulers, to whom I have already referred, and whose 
wisdom, although a pagan's, established the prosperity 
of ancient Sparta. There was much in his system, of 
course, that would be absurd and out of place in the 
civilization of modern times ; and much also in respect 
to the institution of marriage, and the proper training 
therefor, which modern society can ill afford to disre- 
gard. Under Lycurgus, Sparta grew up from a state 
of indigence and non-entity to one of unrivaled pros- 
perity in virtue, industry, wealth, courage, and honor- 
able fame ; in brief, in most of the elements that 
ornament and exalt a people. 

Lycurgus seems to have correctly apprehended the 
laws of the physical economy, as well as those ante- 
natal influences essential to a healthy progeny. He 
inculcated simplicity of diet, of habits, and of dress, 
and strictly abjured the refinements and luxuries which 
at that time were demoralizing Athens, as tending to 
induce effeminacy. All sorts of games were intro- 
duced involving the exhibition of muscular energy and 
strength. In these exercises the women were espe- 
cially invited and encouraged to take part; as it was 
deemed a most important element of their education 
and fitness, in order to properly fulfill the function of 
maternity, that they should be robust in bodv and mind.. 
How unwise, said this lawgiver, for people to take such 
solicitude about the physical development and breeding 
of stock, and leave to chance what is of so much greater 
importance, — the breeding and training of healthy 
children ! Mothers were in this manner especially 
trained for maternity ; and the ultimate results on the 

20* 



230 



MARRIAGE. 



race were what might have been naturally anticipated. 
When a woman of another country said to Gorgo, the 
wife of Leonidas, that " you of Lacedaemon are the 
only women in the world that rule the men," she an- 
swered, " We are the only women that bring forth 
men !"* The sexes were educated together, and mu- 
tually engaged in all their social customs, games, and 
pastimes. Early marriages tended to enfeeble offspring, 
and were therefore discouraged. And for a similar 
reason marriage between parties of unequal rank and 
culture, and blood relations especially, was not per- 
mitted. Matrimony was enjoined upon all the able- 
bodied as a moral duty; and bachelors who refused to 
submit themselves to the marital yoke were objects of 
ridicule, disability, and fine. Nor was anything more 
than these negative inducements offered to candidates 
for marriage ; but, on the contrary, all temptations 
likely to corrupt the institution, as bringing the sexes 
together through other motives than mental attraction 
and regard, such as dower, position, rank, etc., were 
carefully avoided. These measures were pre-eminently 
adapted, in their view, to promote congenial wedlock, 
and to secure the highest possible virtue in the family 
relation and society. Nor were they less wisely cal- 
culated to guarantee the physical and mental welfare 
of their progeny. 

These people encouraged the growth of friendships 
between the sexes, with a view of promoting the moral 
and social virtues. Young men were cherished by 
the opposite sex as brothers. " Yet," says Plutarch,f 
" in Sparta it was a virtuous and modest affection, un- 

* Plutarch's Lives, p. 51. f Ibid., p. 53. 



MARRIAGE. 



23I 



tinged with that sensuality which was so scandalous 
at Athens and other places." Nothing could be more 
free and simple than Spartan life and manners ; and 
yet no people of any age have equaled them in 
modesty and chastity. Plutarch says that adultery 
was absolutely unknown to them. A stranger, on one 
occasion, asked Geradas, an ancient Spartan, "what 
punishment their law appointed for adulterers. He 
answered, ' My friend, there are no adulterers in our 
country.' The other replied, ' But what if there 
should be one?' 'Why, then,' said Geradas, 'he 
must forfeit a bull so large that he might drink of the 
Eurotas from the top of Mount Taygetus !' When 
the stranger expressed his surprise at this, and said, 
' How can such a bull be found ?' Geradas answered, 
with a smile, ' How can an adulterer be found in 
Sparta?'"* 

It is a matter of no little surprise to find that the 
laws of reproduction, and the influence of a well-as- 
sorted marriage on the physical and moral develop- 
ment of children, were so well understood by the 
ancient Greeks ! They did not, however, fully appre- 
ciate the divine relation of the sexes. To them mar- 
riage was instituted chiefly for the propagation of the 
species and the welfare of the state. Solon, nearly a 
century after Lycurgus, distinctly so declared.f The 



* Plutarch's Lives, p. 52. 

f Ibid., pp. 79, 80. Plutarch says that Solon " did not choose that mar- 
riages should be made with mercenary or venal views ; but would have that 
union cemented by the endearment of children, and every other instance of 
love and friendship. Nay, Dionysius himself, when his mother desired to 
be married to a young Syracusan, told her, He had indeed, by his tyranny, 
broken through the laws of his country, but he could not break those of nature 
by countenancing so disproportioned a match. And surely such disorders 



232 



MARRIAGE. 



law of uses they clearly apprehended; but of the true, 
abiding", and beneficent influence of the spiritual mar- 
riage on the individual, as an institution existing pri- 
marily for his sake, they seem to have had but a very 
feeble conception. In that respect, however, it may 
be remarked that the opinions of this ancient people 
appear to have been quite as far advanced, unhappily, 
as those of the majority of mankind of modern times. 
Surely, with the wisdom of the ages and modern 
science to guide and instruct our minds, there should 
be no difficulty in solving the moral and physiological 
problems of marriage and its allied subjects, and in 
unfolding the relation which subsists between them 
and the morals of mankind. Institutions exist for 
man, not man for institutions ; and in proportion as 
they conform to his nature and highest interests, do 
they fulfill the end and purpose of Infinite Wisdom. 
In proportion, moreover, as this truth is recognized, 
shall man have less reverence for institutions, and 
more reverence for the principles at the back of them. 
Then will he be emancipated from mental thraldom, 
and the tyranny of arbitrary edicts, political and eccle- 
siastical, and more clearly apprehend his relations to 
his fellow, to society, and to the Infinite. 



should not be tolerated in any state, nor such matches, where there is no 
equality of years, or inducements of love, or probability that the end of 
marriage will be answered. So that to an old man who marries a young 
woman, some prudent magistrate or lawyer might express himself in the 
words addressed to Philoctetes : 

' Poor soul ! how fit art thou to marry !' " 

» Plutarch's Lives, art. Solon. 



MARRIAGE. 



233 



Note on Illegitimacy. 

In Europe illegitimate children are far more numer- 
ous than in America. In Scotland, although the mar 
riage ceremony required by law is so simple that one 
wonders how such an incident as bastardy could occur 
under its operation, the percentage of illegitimate births 
amounts to about nine per cent, of the total number. 
In some of her counties it is as high as fifteen per cent, 
of the total number of births, as the following table, 
from the registrar-general's report for the quarter 
ending June 30, 1869, shows: 

Proportion of Illegitimate in every Hundred Births in the Divi- 
sions and Counties of Scotland during the Quarter ending 
June 2,0, 1869.* 





B 




Divisions. 


Q.2 




Scotland . . 




Northern . . 


8.0 




North-Western 


7-8 




North- Eastern 


*3-°\ 




East-Midland . 


10.4 




West-Midland 


7.0 




South-Western 


8.0 




South-Eastern 


8.S 




Southern . . 


i-39 













6 






jj 2 




Counties. 






Orkney ' . 


6.1 




Shetland . 


3-7 




Caithness . 


10.4 




Sutherland 


9-7 




Ross and ) 
Cromarty j 






4-3 




Inverness . 


10.9 




Nairn . . 


13-5 




Elgin . ., 


I3-S 




Banff . . 


11. 9 




Aberdeen . 


13..2 




Kincardine 


12.4 










V 
















COUNTIES. 






Forfar . . 


12.2 




Perth . . 


TO 


4 




Fife. . . 


8 






Kinross 


6 


9. 




Clack-") 
mannanj" 


7 







Stirling 


6 


S 




Dumbarton 


6 


7 




Argyll . . 


8 


2 




Bute . . 


6 


6 




Renfrew . 


7 


1 




Ayr . . . 


9 








Lanark 
Linlithgow- 
Edinburgh 
Haddington 
Berwick . 
Peebles 
Selkirk . . 
Roxburgh 
Dumfries . 
Kirkcud 

bright 
Wigtown . 



7-3 
8.5 
8.4 
7-5 
10.6 
10.2 
9.0 
10.9 
14.7 

i5-i 
r 5-3 



* Jour. Stat. Society, vol. xxxii. London, ii 



INDEX. 



Adultery, not known at Sparta, 231. 

iEsculapius, his temple at Epidaurus, 10; 
serpents kept at, in charge of the god- 
dess Hygeia, ibid. 

Affluence, Miss Mitford's fear of, 183 ; the 
evil tendency of, 137, 183 ; Christ's 
caution against, ibid. 

Age of distinguished men and women : 
of philosophers, 106, 113; of statesmen, 
107; of men of letters, 108; of poets, 
109; of musical composers, ibid.; of 
sculptors, no; of painters, 109. Tables 
giving the, of persons of rank, profes- 
sions and trades, 114, 115, 116. 

Ague, fever and, injures the moral per- 
ceptions, 42. 

Alcohol, influence of, on the mind, 64; 
impairs the moral powers, 66; promotes 
crime and disease, 67, 68, 71 ; investi- 
gation of the Massachusetts State Board 
of Health into the uses and abuses of, 
ibid.; Dr. Maudsley on the effects of, 
69 ; Dr. Carpenter's views, 66, 70, 93; 
notes on, 92 ; causes profanity, 46. 

Alger, Rev. W. R., his views of love, 
marriage, friendship, etc., 179, 196, 201. 

American Congress, the corruption of, 
!3 2 , 159- 

Anger, the effects of, 144 ; poisons the 
secretions, causes fever, jaundice, and 
melancholy, ibid.; a cause of death, 145. 

Anxiety, painful effect of prolonged, 146. 

Art, the elevating tendency of the study 
of, 171 ; the productions of, among the 
highest exhibitions of nature, 172. 

Atoms, divinity in the, 50; Emerson in 
support of the hypothesis, ibid. 

Axon on " The Physiological Position of 
Tobacco," 80; his views relative to the 
degrading influence of tobacco-using, 
77; 'tis devoid of aesthetic beauty; an 
unmanly leaning on a solace to care and 
labor; neither sought nor needed by 
woman; a foolish improvidence, ibid. 

Beecher, Rev. H. W., on compulsory- 
education, 159 ; the testimony of, re- 
specting the moral degradation of the 
aged, ibid. 

Beitrage, on the connection of suicide and 
age, 35. 

Belladonna, destructive mania of, 46. 



Benevolence, a moral element; the prac- 
tice of, a religious virtue, 136. 

Bertillon's marriage statistics, 202. 

Biography, the importance of the study 
of, to the young, 175 ; nothing more in- 
spiring than, ibid.; Bulwer's testimony, 
ibid.; the scientific importance of, 176; 
Maudsley's views cited, ibid. 

Blair, Rev. Dr., on the fixedness of the 
divine purpose, and the folly of attempt- 
ing to persuade the Deity by supplica- 
tions, 190-1. 

Blatin's studies of tobacco, 76; cites cases 
of vertigo, caused by the use of, ibid. 

Body and Mind, Maudsley's, cited, 15, 
45, 69, 103. 

Body and Mind, Winslow'.s, cited, 21, 50, 
52, in, 117, 146. 

Books, the influence of, 174 ; the character 
of, an important desideratum to the 
young, ibid.; the surveillance of the 
church over, ibid.; the kind of, mosf 
useful, 175 ; the desirability of keep- 
ing the young mind untrammeled of 
opinions, 175. 

Bowditch, Dr. H. W., on intemperance 
as affected by climate, 68. 

Brain, the, a congeries of organs and a 
plurality of mental functions, 95, 96 ; 
the most enduring organ, 123. 

Buckle's idea of the uses of love, 195 ; on 
the regularity of moral phenomena, n ; 
examples of longevity quoted from, 113. 

Burton's characterization of the student, 



Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope" cited, 
169. 

Caspar's tables showing the relation be- 
tween seasons and suicide, 34; and of 
age and suicide, 35. 

Celibacy, the struggle of the church with, 
225; the demoralizing effect on the 
morals of the clergy of, 226; Keightley's 
History of Roman Empire cited on the 
effects of, 225-6; Mosheim's Ecclesias- 
tical History cited on the influence of, 
226-7 .' the nunneries and monasteries 
peopled by reason of enforcing the de- 
crees of, 225 ; Christianity demoralized 
by, 226 et scq. 

Chambers, Dr., views of coffee, 56. 



235 



236 



INDEX. 



Chamomilla, the mental irritability of, 46 ; 
a remedy for the same disease, ibid. 

Cheerfulness, the influence of, 167; allied 
to hope, ibid.; an agent of moral hy- 
giene, 168 ; the exercise of, a power- 
ful prophylactic against disease, ibid.; 
Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope," 169 ; 
Solomon's views on the influence of, 
168. 

Children the legitimate products of ante- 
cedent influences, 214 ; parents live again 
in their, 207 ; the vices and follies of 
parents faithfully recorded on their, 
ibid, et seq.; virtues also inscribed 
upon the character of their, ibid.; "Gail- 
Hamilton's" characterization of respon- 
sible parentage, 206. 

Christ the type of supreme manhood, 158 ; 
a model for Christian emulation in pro- 
fession, ibid.; of distrust in conduct, 
132, 158, et seq. ; of adulation by the 
lips, but of denial in practice, is&etseq. 

Church, the Roman Catholic, exercised a 
surveillance over literature, 174; the 
power of, over the conscience of com- 
municants, ibid.; blind faith the secret 
of the wonderful power of, 155 ; the 
failure of both the Catholic and Protes- 
tant churches to keep pace with civili- 
zation, 153 ; the method of salvation of, 
the same for the civilized as the un- 
civilized man, ibid.; she is become a 
stumbling-block to mental culture, ibid.; 
Dr. Carpenter on the independence of 
science of, ibid. ; Mr. Lecky on the in- 
fluence of, on civilization, ibid. 

Climate, influence of, on the mind, 24; 
the vice of intemperance affected by, 
24, 25 ; crime affected by, 25, 26 ; studies 
of MM. Quetelet, Guerry, Caspar, and 
Esquirol on, as affecting mental dis- 
ease and crime, 28 et seq. 

Coffee, the effect of, on the mind, 55 ; 
views of Dr. Chambers on, 56; of Abd- 
el-Kader on, ibid. ; of Bayard Taylor, 

57- 

Combe, Dr. Andrew, views of the mental 
effect of imperfectly oxygenated blood, 
22 ; of the mutual dependence of brain 
and mind, etc., 20. 

Combe, Mr. George, views of religion and 
morals, 141-2 ; advises that a certain 
portion of each day be devoted to re- 
ligious exercises, 142 ; on the harmony 
of the divine government, ibid. ; views 
of prayer, 170; elucidation of the laws 
of hereditary descent, 207, 210, 211; 
views of parentage, the conjugal fitness 
of parents for, 211, 214. 

Conception, the time when the consti- 
tution of the child is established, 218 ; 
mental traits of children received at, 
ibid. ; modified indefinitely by all suc- 
ceeding influences upon the mother, 
ibijd. et seq. 

Constitution of Man, Combe's, cited, 141 
et seq . 

Conversation, the elements of, 172; com- 



prehends science and art and culture, 
ibid.; the duty of cultivating, 173; fine 
powers of, a rare accomplishment, ibid. ; 
defective teaching of, ibid. ; Bronson's 
views on, ibid. 

Cowley's lines to his love, cited, 177. 

Crime, the relation of, to knowledge, 38, 
39 ; influence of seasons on, 39, 40; in- 
sanity and, 41 ; the sexes and, 39 ; dis- 
ease and, 28, 29. 

Culture, Greek conception of, 103 ; Emer- 
son on, toi ; views of Dr. Ray, 102; 
Dr. Maudsley's idea of, 103 ; manual 
exercise an adjuvant to, 102 et seq.; 
Dr. Todd on, 126. 

De Quincey on the effects of opium, 63. 

Descartes on the probable influence of 
medicines on the mind, 22. 

De Tocqueville's need of friends, 179. 

Diet, influence of, on the mind, 47; the 
chemical views of, controverted, 48, 49 ; 
modification of character by, 51 ; in 
animals, ibid, et seq.; views of Sylvester 
Graham, 52; influence of, on the pas- 
sions, 53. 

Disappointment, influence of, 148; a cause 
of suicide, ibid. 

Disease, demoralizing to the mental func- 
tions, 42; views of Dr. J. R. Black, 44 ; 
Dr.Win-dow,ibid. ; Feuchtersleben, 45 ; 
Hahnemann, ibid.; Maudsley, ibid. 

Divorce unknown in Pagan Rome for 
several centuries, although her laws 
permitted it for various causes, 228. 

Dodge, Miss, views of responsible ma- 
ternity, 206. 

Eichhorn on the wholesome influence of 

hard study, 112. 
Emerson, R. W., views on the mental 

influence of the grand and beautiful in 

nature, 27. 
Emotions, the discipline of the, 144; evils 

arising from the undue exercise of, 144 

et seq. 
England, History of Civilization in, cited, 

11 ■ 

Europe, Intellectual Development of, 
cited, n. 

European Morals, History of, cited, iS. 

Exercise, reciprocal influence of corporeal 
and mental, 95 ; inferior position of man- 
ual, 98 ; manual not desirable for its own 
sake, ibid.; mental culture the true end 
and object that should be sought in 
bodily training, 101 ; the occasion for 
great physical development passing 
away, 100; Kmerson in support of this 
view, 101; the physical energies required 
to support the mental, in the present 
civilization, 102; a natural tonic, 100; 
Mr. Graham's views of, ibid.; imparts 
grace and strength to the body, and 
vigor and energy to the mind, ibid. ; 
harmony of mental and physical, indis- 
pensable to normal development, 103; 
the laws of, equally applicable to both 



INDEX. 



237 



mind and body, 103 ; partial and defect- 
ive exercise of the faculties a direct 
cause of vice and disease, 105 ; Ruloff's 
case cited, ibid.; the development of 
great men points to this conclusion, 
ibid. 

Faculties, the disproportionate develop- 
ment of, the cause of evil, 105 et seq. 
Faith, a strong element in human nature, 

163 ; an agent in the operation of medi- 
cine as well as of moral causes, 9, 10, 
154, 166; credulity a lower form or 
manifestation of, 164 ; all the religions 
founded upon, 152 ; the corner-stone of 
Christianity, 153 ; Christ's testimony in 
respect to, ibid. ; Paul's, ibid. ; James's, 
ibid. ; the pope had a lever in, by which 
he was able to move the world, 155 ; 
abuses of, common among savages and 
Christians alike, ibid. ; examples of the 
exercise of, among savages, 156 ; among 
Christians, 157; true faith the basis of 
success in any calling, 163 ; its higher 
manifestation prominent in the conduct 
of the most reasonable, 163 ; does not 
decline with the advance of civilization, 

164 ; its exercise not limited to religion, 
ibid.; Franklin's idea of, 162; Mr. Em- 
erson's views of, 164; Sir Humphry 
Davy's interesting experiment illus- 
trating the power of, in curing disease, 
166; the Prince of Orange's experience 
with sham medicine cited, ibid.; Bag- 
livi's testimony respecting its agency in 
the physician's calling, 167 ; in com- 
bating disease is often more potent than 
medicine, 165, 166. 

Fasting, influence of, on the mind, 59 et 
seq. ; experience of Christ and Gotama 
referred to, 54, 58 ; decline of the custom 
of, in the Christian church, 59. 

Fear, destructive effect of, 145. 

Feuchtersleben on the moral influence of 
bodily conditions, 45. 

Fevers, influence of, on the mind, 42 ; im- 
pair the processes of thought and feel- 
ing, ibid. 

Eruptive, in general, leave a salutary 
impression on the mind and morals, 
ibid.; destructive effect of, on the func- 
tion of cerebration, ibid. ; sometimes 
beneficial on the mind, 43 ; Dr. Tuke's 
case cited, ibid. ; author's experience, 
ibid. 

Scarlet, wholesome influence of, ibid. 
Typhus, sometimes restores a weak 
mind and breaks a strong one, 43. 

Fidelity, absence of, among nominal Chris- 
tians, 133, 153; the love of gain a stronger 
element in than, ibid, et seq.; a su- 
preme virtue among the ancient pagans, 
230. 

Fitzosborne's noble sentiment relative to 
life's work, 181. 

Flirts, the worst kind of, improved by 
marriage, 203 ; examples of, cited, ibid. 

Flourens, M., and others, experiments in 



removing the cerebra of animals, 19 ; 
the twofold life of the higher orders of 
animals demonstrated thereby, ibid. 
Friendship, the regenerating influence of, 
178 et seq.; the real nature and mean- 
ing of, 179; Mr. Alger's views cited, 
ibid. ; De Tocqueville's dependence on, 
ibid. ; cultivation of, in Sparta, between 
the sexes, 230. 

God, our knowledge of, derived solely 
from the moral powers, 129,185 ; Emer- 
son quoted in support of the hypothesis, 
ibid. ; residence of, in matter, 50. 

Good's, Dr., Study of Medicine, cited, 
209 ; his prayer and prayerful example, 
193- 

Gotama, the fine theology of, 54. 

Graham, Sylvester, on the effects of stim- 
ulants, 61 ; moral influence of diet, 51, 
52 ; exercise a tonic, 100. 

Greeks, their idea of culture, 103. 

Grief, the influence of, 146. 

Haller's Elements of Physiology cited, 
209. 

Hallucinations, the, of hasheesh and 
stramonium, 46, 83. 

Hasheesh, influence of, on the mind, 83 
et seq. 

Health preserved by jugglery anciently, 
10 ; a practice not altogether extinct 
among civilized people, 10, n. 

Hereditary descent, the principles of, 
206 ; virtues and vices, bodily and 
mental peculiarities, alike propagable, 
ibid, et seq. ; Laban's knowledge of, 
209 ; Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter's statement 
of the law of, 208; Dr. Pritchard's con- 
firmation of the truth of, ibid. ; Dr. 
Good's opinion of, 209 ; stupidity and 
wit propagable, ibid. ; idiocy subject to 
the laws of, ibid. ; cases cited in confir- 
mation of, from Haller, 209; Esquirol 
quoted, 210; cowardice transmissible, 
210; the case of James I. of England 
cited in proof of, ibid. ; courage likewise 
propagable, 211 ; Napoleon Bonaparte 
an example of, ibid. ; the vice of theft 
subject to the laws of, ibid. ; cases cited 
from the author's observation, ibid. ; 
the bearing of the laws of, on gestation 
and parentage, 212 et seq. 

Hippocrates on the moral influence of 
food, 50. 

History of Man, Sketches of the, Lord 
Karnes, 149, 150. 

Honor, the lack of, in the medical profes- 
sion, 133; in all the professions, 135; 
and trades, 135, 158, 159 ; H. \V. Beech- 
er's testimony on, 159 ; causes of, 135, 
161. 

Huet's views on mental pursuits, 113. 

Hygeia, the goddess, controlled the con- 
dition of health, and by the aid of ser- 
pents dissipated disease and pestilence, 
10. 

Hygiene, mental, comprehends the laws 



2 3 8 



INDEX. 



and conditions of man's mental being, 
16; its study partial and incomplete, 
ibid. ; the restrictions imposed by the- 
ology and metaphysical philosophy on, 
16, 17. 
Hyoscyamus, the jealous furore of, 46. 

Idleness, the danger of, 181 ; the student's 
special " devil," ibid. ; Dr. Todd's views 
of, 181 et seq. 

Ignatia and lycopodium, sorrowful prop- 
erties of, 46. 

Imagination, influence of diet on, 52, 54, 
65 ; of tea and coffee, 55 ; of flesh, 52 ; 
of fasting, 59 ; Milton's views, ibid. ; 
Moleschott cited, ibid. ; Thackeray's 
experience, 58 ; effect of medicines on 
the, 61. 

Immorality, the wide prevalence of, 132 
et seq.; causes of, 135, 161; not incon- 
sistent with popular religion, 131 ; cure 
of, to be sought in culture, 136 et seq. ; 
unmanly nature of, 136. 

Industry a talisman against the tempta- 
tions of the devil, 181 ; a valuable specific 
against disease, and an invaluable aux- 
iliary of moral reform, ibid. ; Mr. Emer- 
son on the preserving power of, 182. 

Insanity affected by age, 33 ; by the sea- 
sons, 32 ; comparative liability of the 
■ sexes to, 34; Dr. Guy on, and crime, 

Irving, Washington, on the influence of 
marriage, 199. 

Jealousy, the baleful nature of, 149 ; Lord 

Karnes's characterization of, ibid. 
Joy, the influence of immoderate, 145. 
Justice, the love of, a superior virtue, 136. 

Karnes, Lord, on jealousy, 149 ; on the 
influence of prayer, 191. 

Keightley's History of the Roman Em- 
pire cited, 225 et seq.; his testimony 
relative to the moral influence of celi- 
bacy, ibid. 

Language, the study of, ranks high in 
mental culture, 172; it comprehends 
both science and art, ibid. 

Laws of health, the, comprehend our rela- 
tions to the Infinite, 9, 20. 

Laws of nature, the, control all events, 
spiritual as well as physical, 10, 11 ; the 
laws of God, 225 ; will soon be recog- 
nized by all classes of philosophers as 
being as undeviating in the moral as 
in the material world, 11 ; Draper, 
Buckle, and Lecky relative to, cited 
ibid. 

Lecky, Mr., on the universality of law, 
11 ; on the Greek idea of culture, 103; 
his History of European Morals cited, 
11, 18; also of Rationalism in Europe, 
103, 153. 

Lee, Dr. C. A., on the effect of alcohol, 
92. 

Leechman, Rev. Dr., on prayer, and the 



unchangeableness of the Divine purpose, 
189, 190. 

Lewes on the mind and brain, 14 ; alcohol, 
93 ; tobacco, 77. 

Liebig's hypothesis of nutrition, 92. 

Light, influence of, on the mind, 27 ; 
Cowper's experience cited, ibid.; melan- 
choly dissipated by, ibid. 

Literature, the study of, an exalted recre- 
ation, 173; a cure for grief and disap- 
pointment, an antidote for sorrow, ibid. ; 
the control of, long maintained by the 
church, 174; the influence of, on the 
young, 175 ; literature more influential 
over the mind than companions, 174. 

Longevity, promoted by mental pursuits, 
106 ; examples of, among statesmen and 
philosophers, 106-108 ; among paint- 
ers, 109; among sculptors, no; among 
scholars, 113; adverse influence of in- 
digence on, 115, 116. 

Love, two phases of, the virtuous and 
vicious, 177 ; virtuous, an inspiration to 
all that is good and noble, ibid.; vicious, 
in marriage or outside of it, demoralizing, 
177, 200, 201, 204, 205, et seq.; Home's 
views of virtuous love, 177; Petrarch 
believed love to be the " holiest right of 
the soul," ibid. ; the essence of religion, 
ibid. ; Southey's opinion, ibid. ; Terence 
on the transforming influence of, ibid.; 
Cowley's sentiment in illustration of the 
nature of, ibid. ; the exercise of true, an 
indication of nobility, 178; true mar- 
riage the evolution of, 195 ; Buckle's 
opinion respecting the heart's need of, 
ibid. ; Mrs. Evans Lewes on the exalt- 
ing influence of, 201 ; in marriage, an 
indispensable requisite for generating 
well-endowed children, 212 et seq.; 
Mr. Combe's view of, incomplete, 212; 
Sir J. Mackintosh's indebtedness to, 
201 ; Melanchthon's acknowledgment 
of the influence of, ibid. ; Mill's elevated 
sentiment of, 195. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, tribute to his 
wife, 201. 

Maddens Infirmities of Genius cited, 112. 

Man, mind the most important part of, 
3, 17; a physiological unit, 19. 

Mania and alcoholism, the parallel of, 
69. 

Margravine's advice respecting the care 
of a mother, or of her who is about to 
become such, 207. 

Marriage, the nature of, 195; the true 
and false, ibid.; instinctive compre- 
hension of the true, ibid., 221 ; the 
necessity of, ibid. ; the demands of man- 
hood and womanhood for, ibid. ; the 
poetic conception of, in Genesis, ibid. ; 
Mr. Mill's fine ideal of, 196; Mr. Al- 
ger's excellent pen-sketch of, ibid. ; the 
sanctity of, 107; Statins, line sentiment 
of, ibid. : Theodore Parker's idea of, 
ibid.: the Christian's view of, of the 
earth earthy, ibid.; the Roman Catho- 



INDEX. 



239 



lie doctrine concerning, ibid. ; the civil 
view of, ibid. ; the influence of, on the 
individual and the state, 198 ; true, an 
inspiration to virtue ; false, an incite- 
ment to evil, ibid. ; Mill cited, ibid. ; 
promotes mental balance, and extirpates 
selfishness, 199; Washington Irving's 
views of, ibid. ; cases in confirmation of 
the hallowed influence of, ibid., 200; 
Mr. Alger on the cementing of, ibid. ; 
Mackintosh's tribute to the influence of, 
201 ; the starting-point in many men's 
career in virtue or vice, 201, 202 ; influ- 
ence of, on health and longevity, ibid. ; 
statistics collected by M. Bertillon, of 
Paris, on, ibid. ; woman no exception to 
the operation of the influence of, 203 ; 
cases of flirts, cited in confirmation, ibid.; 
man and woman designed to be mutu- 
ally helpful in, 204 ; the sexes not com- 
plete without, ibid. ; the mismated de- 
moralized by, ibid. ; love descends into 
lust in impure, 205 ; cases in illustration 
of the evils of discordant, 205 ; the influ- 
ence of, on the progeny, for weal or woe, 
206 et seq. ; ill-assorted, full of woe to 
the children, ibid. ; the teachings of 
physiology relative to the laws of hered- 
itary descent, and their bearings on, I 
208 et seq. ; cases in confirmation of, 
ibid.; M. Esquirol quoted, ibid.; Mr. 
Combe's views cited, 211 ; the requisite 
conditions of true marriage, 212; moral 
and intellectual qualities no adequate 
fitness for, ibid. ; Mr. Combe contro- 
verted, cases in confirmation of the 
author's views of, ibid, et seq.; great 
men may be produced in indifferent, 
213 ; but good and great men, never, 214 ; 
man no chance product of nature, ibid. ; 
the quality of, largely influences his 
destiny, ibid. ; absence of, better for the 
progeny than impure, ibid, et seq. ; 
some of the evils on the mother of dis- 
cordant, 218; children cursed in un- 
chaste, before they are born, ibid. ; an 
illustration of "being conceived in sin 
and born in iniquity," ibid. ; the ordi- 
nary influences to, ibid. ; Dr. Johnson's 
statement of the motives which lead to, 
219 ; the rights of maternity not re- 
spected in discordant, ibid. : the re- 
pugnance to child-bearing of the dis- 
cordantly married, 220 ; unhappy, an 
incitement to infanticide and foeticide, 
ibid. ; the contrast between the true 
and false, 221 ; the remedy for the evils 
of discordant, 222 ; obeying the laws of 
God the true remedy for the evils of, 
ibid. ; legislation in respect to, itself an 
evil, ibid. ;_ virtue in, not a proper ob- 
ject of legislative edicts, 223; examples 
of the ancients relative to, ibid. ; the 
lesson of Rome, ibid. ; the influence of 
celibacy on, 225 et seq.; morals and, 
depraved by celibacy, 226 et seq.; 
Lycurgus's recommendations relative 
to, 227; Solon's regulations of, 227,231. 



Massachusetts, State Board of Health of, 
reports, 25, 68, 71. 

Materialism not inconsistent with spirit- 
uality, nor degrading to man, nor op- 
posed to the dignity of Deity, 50. 

Matter, the nature of, obscure, 12 ; is in- 
separable from force, 13 ; the laws of, 
objects of study, its essence beyond the 
ken of reason, 12, 13; Deity in, 50; 
relation of mind and, 13, 50. 

Maudsley on the mind, 13, 15 ; psychical 
properties of drugs, 45 ; on alcohol, 69 ; 
on biography, 169. 

Mayhew, Mr., views of, on the needs of 
the London poor, criticised, 36, 37. 

Medicines, psychical influence of, 46; 
views of Maudsley on, 45 ; modus ope- 
randi of, 47 ; views of Paine, quoted, 
ibid. 

Melanchthon's indebtedness to Catherine, 
his wife, 201. 

Memory, men distinguished for, 123, 124 ; 
examples of remarkable, 124, 125 ; views 
of Sir Wm. Hamilton on, 124. 

Mental labor favorable to longevity, 106; 
examples cited, ibid, et seq.; embar- 
rassed by errors of living, 125 ; Eich- 
horn's views, 112; Dr. Caldwell's views, 
ibid. 

Mental powers, symptoms of the failure 
of the, 121 ; serious symptoms of, ibid. ; 
the remedy for, 122. 

" Middlemarch" cited on the power of 
love, 20T. 

Mill, J. S., the beautiful tribute to his 
wife, 201 ; his Subjection of Woman 
cited, 195 ; his fine conception of love, 
and marriage, ibid. 

Mind, the, not an entity, 12 ; phenomena 
of, the result of the nervous functions of 
living beings, ibid. ; not separable from 
matter, except in conception, 13; the 
brain the organ of, 12 et seq.; nature 
of, obscure and incomprehensible, 12, 
13 ; is a part of nature, and subject to 
the organic laws, 15 et seq. ; is the 
supreme evolution of organic life, 17; 
consciousness gives no knowledge of, 13 ; 
complete dependence of, on the brain 
and nervous system, 19 ; development 
of, consentaneous with the development 
of the nervous system, 14 ; the mutual 
dependence of mind and matter, of 
body and mind, 20 et seq. ; affected by 
morbific causes, 21 et seq.; the victim 
of "possession," 90,91 ; variously modi- 
fied by physical and medicinal agents, 
22 et seq.; Magendie on the, 13; the 
views of Good, Spurzheim, Combe, 
Maudsley, Lewes, Brown, and others 
on the, 13 et seq.; effect of fear on, 145 ; 
grief on, 146 ; anxiety on, ibid. ; re- 
morse on, 147; revenge on, 149; dis- 
appointment on, 148 ; jealousy on, 149 ; 
influence of superstition on, 150 et 
seq.; influence of tobacco on, 8o; of 
alcohol on, 64 ; of opium on, 62 ; of 
hasheesh on, 83 et seq. ; of tea and coffee 



240 



INDEX. 



on, 56, 57 ; modified by fever, 43 ; and 
by various other diseases, 42 ; and by 
meteorological influences, 23, 24, 25, 
26 ; by food, 51 ; by fasting, 58, 59 ; the 
effect of raw flesh on, 52 ; Fuseli's ex- 
perience cited, ibid. ; Mr. Graham's 
testimony, ibid. 

Mitford's, Miss, caution against riches, 183. 

Moleschott,on alcohol, 94; on hunger, 59. 

Money and morality, the antagonism be- 
tween, 137. 

Morals, influence of physical agents on, 
45 et seq. ; of meteorological condi- 
tions, 26 ; Winslow's observations, ibid.; 
of destitution, 28; of medicines, 45, 46; 
of diseases, 43, 44; Winslow, Black, 
Hahnemann, and Feuchtersleben cited 
in support of, 44, 45 ; of food, 51 ; Hip- 
pocrates cited, 50; of the fast, 58; of 
alcohol, 80 et seq. ; of opium, 63 ; of 
tea and coffee, 72; of tobacco, 81, 82; 
degenerate condition of public, in Chris- 
tendom, 131 et seq. 

Morbid anatomy and immorality frequent- 
ly supplement each other, 18. 

Mortality, percentage of, greatest among 
the poor, 116; least among brain- 
workers, 106 et seq. 

Mosheim, on the demoralization of the 
Christian church consequent on en- 
forcing the decree of celibacy, 226. 

Mother, the, a proper object of tender 
solicitude, 207 et seq.; adverse in- 
fluences upon her reflected upon her 
child, ibid. ; the instincts of a, will be 
respected by the husband in true mar- 
riage, 220, 221 ; an animal love during 
gestation abhorrent to a, 218 et seq. 

Music, influence of, on the corporal and 
mental functions, 170; a remedy in 
madness, ibid. ; the cultivation of, a 
cure for vice, 171; Shakspeare's views 
of, ibid. ; Mr. Graham's high commen- 
dation of, ibid. 

Napoleon, the ante-natal influences on, 
211 ; his opinion of smoking, 78. 

Nature, early Greek conception of, 15; 
comprehends all things within the ken 
of reason and observation, 15, 16. 

Nutrition, the two considerations ordina- 
rily implied in, 49 ; mental considera- 
tions scarcely second to those of the 
physical, 51 ; chemical views of, contro- 
verted, 48. 

Nux vomica, specific influence of, on the 
medulla oblongata, 71 ; ill-humor caused 
by, 46. 

Opinions, fools have a plethory of, 177. 
Opium, specific effects of, on the mind, 

62 ; paralyzing effect on the passions 

of, 63 ; impairs the judgment, ibid. ; 

De Quincey's experience with, ibid. ; 

Bayard Taylor's, 64. 

Paine, Dr. Martin, on the modus operandi 
of medicinal agents, 47. 



Palpitation of the heart, a common effect 
of tobacco, 74 et seq. ; the experiments 
of Dr. Edward Smith cited, ibid. 

Passion, the sexual, destroyed by opium, 
63 ; stimulated by china, coffee, alcohol, 
and tobacco, 46, 66, 82. 

Pathology, moral, the necessity for a, 18 ; 
the intimate relation of disease and 
crime points to an identity of causes of 
both phenomena, 18; and the mental 
effects of medicinal agents indicate like- 
wise the possibility of a science of moral 
therapeutics, 18, 46; Mr. Lecky's an- 
ticipations in this direction, 18; Ray's 
contribution to, quoted from, 128. 

" Peculiar People's," the, faith in prayer, 
158; an analogous instance of, among 
the barbarians of the Sandwich Islands, 

159- 

Pereira, Dr., on alcohol, 92. 

Peruvian bark, psychical effects of, 46 ; 
demoralizing influence of, 42. 

Physician, the calling of the, a noble one, 
133 ; deserving of special consecration, 
ibid. ; the " doctor" does not always rise 
to the ideal type of, 134. 

Physiologist, the materialistic and the 
metaphysical, 15 ; divergence of, ibid. ; 
different stand-points to observe the 
same phenomena, 14 ; the conflict of 
opinion between them of no practical 
importance, ibid. 

Plutarch on Sparta, 230 ; his admiration 
for the Spartan character, 231. 

Possession, demoniacal, not greatly at 
variance with fact, 90, 91 ; a new theory 
of, ibid. 

Poverty, the moral influence of, 182 ; the 
condition of, one for gratitude, 183; 
the meaning of, ibid. ; an incentive to 
labor, without which there is no excel- 
lence, ibid. ; the intended curse an 
obvious blessing, ibid. ; Porphyry's 
golden words, ibid. ; \Vm. Wirt's in- 
spiring precept, ibid. 

Prayer, the exercise of, an element of 
moral hygiene, 184 ; the desire to en- 
gage in, arises in a distinct mental 
function, ibid. ; it affords evidence of a 
Supreme Being, 185; it is also an in- 
stinctive recognition of dependence, 
ibid. ; and of the possibility of commu- 
nion with the divine in nature, ibid. ; 
the natural language of a superior men- 
tal gift, ibid. ; Pope's grand utterance 
of, 186; the meaning of, ibid.; not 
always capable of utterance, ibid. ; the 
influence of, on the character, ibid. ; the 
power of, over disease and disturbed 
emotions, ibid. ; the philosophy of, 187; 
the Deity's answer to. ibid. ; rationale 
of, ibid. ; the recourse to outward audi- 
ble supplication a superstitious relic, 
ibid. ; the Bible view of, inconsistent 
with reason, 188; Christ and the apos- 
tles taught extravagant views of, ibid. ; 
the early Christians professed to heal 
the sick by, 156, 158, 1S8 ; and to control 



INDEX. 



24I 



meteorological phenomena and national 
affairs, ibid, et seq . ; this view of the 
power of, not wholly abandoned, 10, 
189, et seq.; the extraordinary claim of 
the influence of, exceedingly impudent, 
ibid. ; extravagant views of, the cause of 
division in the church, ibid. ; the Revs. 
Leechman and Blair of the last century 
conspicuous examples of dissent from 
the ordinary doctrines of, in the Presby- 
terian Church, 190 et seq. ; their views 
of, very generally entertained by Scotch 
divines, ibid. ; Christian rationalists 
generally opposed to the extreme Bible 
doctrine of the power of, 191 ; views 
of Lord Kames on, ibid. ; Mr. O. B. 
Frothingham's, 192 ; Dr. Good's daily 
habit of, 193 ; the influence of, on us, 
rather than Deity, 190; excess of, full 
of grave evil, 170; an instance cited, 
ibid. ; intemperance in, robs labor of its 
reward, ibid. 

Principle, the lack of moral, among Chris- 
tians, 133 et seq. ; the one thing needful, 
ibid. ; moral, characteristic of great 
minds, 138; the natural language of, 
139 ; Horace Mann's views, 140; Elmer- 
son's confirmative of, ibid. 

Principles, the elementary, of the moral 
brain outlined, 1^6 et seq. 

Providence pays as he goes, 139 ; insulted 
no less by impious prayers than blas- 
phemy, 189. 

Pulsatilla, mild, soothing influence of, 46 ; 
causes and cures religious melancholy, 
ibid. 

Pulse, the effect of tobacco on the, 74 et 
seq. 

Quetelet's Science of Man, 28 et seq.; 
views of, on the subjection of man to 
nature, 30 ; tables of, illustrating the 
modifying influences of nature and soci- 
ety on mental development and morbid 
psychological phenomena, 32 et seq. 

Rational philosophy like light in dark 
places, 9. 

Rationalism in Europe, history of, cited, 
103, 151, i5 2 - 

Ray, Dr. Isaac, views of, on the mental 
influence of climate, 24 ; limits of men- 
tal labor, 122 ; subjection of mind to its 
environments, 128. 

Religion, false views of, 129 ; divorce of, 
and morality, hypocrisy the result of, 
134 et seq. ; Geo. Combe's views of the 
necessity of religion and of daily re- 
ligious training, 141, 142. 

Remorse, destructive influence of, 147; 
real or imaginary, equally depressing, 
147, 148. 

Revenge, the effect of indulging feelings 
of, 149. 

Rome, ancient, one of the lessons of her 
decline and fall, 224. 

Ross, Sir John, on the physical effects of 
alcohol as a beverage, 93. 



Rousseau on the effect of excessive men- 
tal application, 117. 

Rush, Dr. Benj., on alcohol, 95; respon- 
sibility of society for disease, 30; diet 
in madness, 60. 

Science and the wisdom of the ages equal 
to our guidance, 232. 

Seasons, effect of, on crime, insanity, etc., 
32 et seq. 

Sentiments, the moral, the highest evolu- 
tion of mind, 130; confer grace and 
dignity on the character, 131 ; Emer- 
son's views on, ibid. ; constitute man a 
religious being, ibid.; separate him 
from the purely animal, 132 ; deteriora- 
tion of, among nominal Christians, 135 ; 
defective influence of, in the medical 
profession, 134; and in all the trades, 
135 ; and in the amenities of social inter- 
course, 133 ; Mr. Beecher's testimony 
in confirmation of the fact, 159 et seq. ; 
causes of the deterioration of, 135, 167 ; 
the cultivation of, a duty, 131 ; give us 
a perception of the Infinite, 129 ; pro- 
mote health and happiness, 131 ; Dr. 
Austin Flint on the hygienic influence of 
the exercise of, 131. 

Sin and sickness, the relation of, often one 
of cause and sequence, 18; both largely 
the consequence of ignorance and folly, 
162. 

Society, responsibility of, for disease and 
crime, 28, 29 ; man's dependence on, 
180; society's work a remedy for ner- 
vous disorders, 181. 

Sparta, life and manners at, 229; the 
sturdy virtues and excellences of, un- 
surpassed, ibid. 

Spirituality, the faculty of, inspires to 
purity and goodness, 137 ; illustrated in 
the prayer of the Psalmist, 137; and the 
words and example of Christ, ibid. 

Stramonium, morbid fear and cowardice 
of, 46. 

Study, hard, promotes health and lon- 
gevity, in ; good for infirm people, 
112; the views of Winslow, Eichhorn, 
Caldwell, Madden, Ray, Huet, and 
Todd on the influence of, 111, 112, 113, 
114, 126 ; no rules for, applicable to all, 
in, 126. 

Sulphur, obstinate effects of, 46. 

Superstition, its origin a credit to man, 
150; the abuse of, attended with evil, 
151 ; Mr. Lecky on, ibid. ; common to 
the primitive mind, 151 ; founded on 
faith, 150 ; is dispelled by knowledge, 



Table showing the relation of ignorance 
and crime, 38 ; of sex and crime, 39 ; 
of seasons and crime, 40 ; of insanity 
and crime, 41 ; of insanity, as influenced 
by age, 33 ; by sex, 34 ; by the seasons, 
32 ; of suicides, as affected by age, 35 ; by 
the seasons, 34: of intemperance, show- 
ing the effect of on pauperism, 71 ; of 



242 



INDEX. 



illegitimate births compared with legiti- 
mate, 233; oflongevity of distinguished 
women, 115; of comparative longevity, 
as influenced by trades and professions, 
ibid. 

Taylor, Bayard, on tobacco, 80 ; opium, 
63 ; coffee, 57; hasheesh, 83 et seq. 

Tea, effect of, on the mind, 58, 72; supe- 
rior to coffee, ibid. ; the tonic effects of, 
on the brain and mind, ibid. 

Temperance, a rule of life, 169 ; its ob- 
servance applicable to the exercise of 
the mental as well as the bodily powers, 
ibid. 

Theology, the propagation of, a bar to 
moral culture, 15 ; obscure propagation 
of, the real object and purpose of re- 
ligion, 15; and impose restrictions on 
inquiry, ibid. ; Maudsley's views on, 
ibid. ; Carpenter's confirmative of, 153; 
the love of abstract controversy a legacy 
bequeathed to medicine by, 15. 

Therapeutics, a science of moral, fore- 
shadowed in the development of medi- 
cine, 18 ; the necessity for, indicated 
in the universal prevalence of mental 
aberration, 133, 135, 136, 159, 160, 
161. 

Tobacco, mental influence of, 73 ; Mr. 
Axon's paper on, 74 et seq.; author's 
views, 75 et seq. ; Mr. Lewes's favora- 
ble views of the use of, 78 ; adverse 
opinions of Druhen, Blatin, Lizars, 
Parton, Napoleon, and others, 78 et 



seq. ; Mr. Taylor's eulogy of, 79 ; in- 
fluence of, on the heart and pulse, 74 ; 
on the sympathetic system, 77 ; vertigo 
caused by, 76; death caused by, ibid. ; 
the habitual use of, devoid of aesthetic 
beauty, 77 ; deteriorates the moral pow- 
ers, 79 ; produces cowardice, 78 ; self- 
ishness, morbid irritability, and rest- 
lessness caused by, 81. 
Todd, Rev. John, his views of culture and 
the limits of brain-work, 126; different 
capabilities of mental endurance, ibid. ; 
the German mind more hardy than that 
of Americans, ibid. ; reading not study, 
ibid. ; six hdurs of hard study a day 
sufficient, 127 ; morning the best time 
for study, ibid. 

Veneration a moral element, 136; the 
exercise of, a religious virtue, 137 ; in- 
cites to worship and love the Supreme 
Good, ibid. 

Vertigo from tobacco-smoking, 76. 

Winslow, Dr. Forbes, views of, on the 
wholesomeness of study and literary 
pursuits, 111"; examples of longevity 
quoted from, 112 et seq. 

Women, The Friendships of, quoted, 179, 
196, 201 ; the love of a noble woman has 
reclaimed many a man from a career 
of vice, 201 et seq. ; grand character of 
the Spartan, 230; influence of marriage 
on, 207 et seq. 



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